Rockhounding for Beginners

September 3, 2019

Hoarding treasure and shiny rocks is a stereotypical draconic behavior found in many books, stories, and movies. However, buying treasure (and even just nice mineral specimens) is expensive, and we're not all made of money! Fortunately, rockhounding (collecting rocks and similar items from their source) can be a cheap and exciting way to add some nice knick-knacks to your collection. For those of you who are interested in rockhounding (dragon or not!), here are some basic tips on how to find places to go rockhounding, what to bring, and how to clean up your specimens. Keep in mind I’m not a geologist, so all of this is what I would do personally…send me your own tips if you have them!

Where to find rocks

Mindat.org is an excellent website to learn about gems and minerals, and it also has a search feature and map so you can find your locality (or click on the localities tab) and look for good places to find rocks and gems.

Also, a good old Google search may give you an idea of what’s in your area, whether that’s popular rock/fossil picking spots or a full on mine with tours and pay-to-dig mine tailings piles.

A safe bet if you have access to a large body of water is beach combing. Wave action from the water will polish rocks and glass bits into nice sea glass and smooth, aesthetically pleasing stones. Road cuts through large hills can expose fossils and other fun stuff as well, but be careful of traffic if you plan to collect close to the road.

Getting there

Some rockhounding places are straightforward travel-wise, but make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into! First and foremost, make sure you’re not trespassing! Some rockhounding areas (especially in the western United States) are on public lands and allow you to walk in, collect specimens, and leave without a fee. Private quarries and collection sites are another beast altogether, and make sure you have permission to be where you plan to collect.

Second, some rockhounding places aren’t easy to get to! Many are easy access, like the on the side of the road or along a beach. However, some require hiking in to the site, while others are approachable by ATV or off-road capable vehicles. Make sure you know what the roads or trails are like where you’re going, and make sure someone knows where you are and when you plan to be back if you won’t have cell service!

What to bring

If you’re just going out to the beach to look for sea glass, bring a bag for your rocks and maybe some water, and you’re good! If you’re looking to do something a little more adventurous, you may need a little more than this.

Mines that are open to the public and allow people to dig at for a fee will often give you the tools you need, but if you’re self-guiding through a mine or a dig site open to the public, it’s not a bad idea to bring leather gloves for digging, a small trowel, and a rock hammer (a normal claw hammer will work in a pinch). A toothbrush or paintbrush and some water help identify and clean specimens so you can figure out whether they’re something you want to keep. If you plan to be breaking/hammering rocks on site for smaller specimens or to see what’s inside, eye and hearing protection aren’t a bad idea as well.

Safety

For normal rockhounding adventures, this shouldn’t be an issue, but if you’re collecting near cliffs or in enclosed mines, be careful of cave-ins or falling rocks. Always, always, always look into a site online if you can and scope it out visually before you jump in for some good old rock scrounging.

Cleaning your shinies

Sadly many specimens don’t look nearly as impressive right as they’re pulled out of the ground as they do when you’ve spent some time cleaning them. Cleaning is really material dependent, since some minerals can handle acid and pressure washing, while some are water soluble and can dissolve if you clean them too roughly. If you know what kind of mineral you’ve collected, usually a quick Google of “how to clean x mineral” or “how to clean x crystal” will give you some options.

If you don’t know what you’ve collected, or you have something fragile like a fossil or sandstone, rinsing it with plain water and giving it a soft scrub may be as far as you can go. If you have more than one of a specimen type, you can use one as a tester and see how harshly you can clean it, and then be a little gentler on the other to keep it in tip top shape.

Anything in the quartz family (amethyst, carnelian, citrine, etc.) can usually stand up to a good vinegar soak and iron remover solution or a round in a rock tumbler if you have access to one.

⚠️ Worth noting...if you can, try to figure out what minerals you have before you try cleaning them! Some minerals are toxic and water soluble, meaning any cleaning you do may expose you to potentially harmful substances (I'm looking at you, malachite). Please be careful and wear gloves! ⚠️

Will I actually find anything worthwhile?

Obviously, museum grade specimens aren’t going to happen on every trip, but you can get some nice stuff with fairly minimal effort if you do a little research and take advantage of mines open to the public.

Of the few outings I’ve done, I’ve gotten some cool stuff! None of it is likely worth much, but that’s not what I’m going for. I’ve put some of my favorite finds below for you all to gander at if you want to see some of the fun stuff you can bring home!

Here are some of the nicer things I've found over the years:

Float copper and copper-rich rocks from the upper peninsula of Michigan (left)


Amethyst (raw and some stuff I tumbled) from Thunder Bay, Ontario (right)

Trilobite fossils from southern Idaho (left)


Horn coral fossils from northern Utah (right)


Specularite from the upper peninsula of Michigan

Good luck, and happy hunting!