Rock collecting, where to begin

Author: jangkrikjr

3 Aug

One of the first things, and probably the most important one at that, that you need to have when you begin rock colleting is genuine interest. The knowledge will come later, the equipment you can collect in time, but the interest you need to have first and foremost.

You might have the enthusiasm at the start. You might find yourself really into it, learning stuff, buying equipment and showing off to your friends. But once you’ve encountered you firs stumbling blocks, the energy you showed early on will wane down and might result to you completely abandoning the project. Having a genuine interest in rock collecting will help you go through tough times.

Your collection can start from rocks you picked up from your front yard. What you need to do is train your eyes to identify which is which. You can always replace the rocks you have with better quality samples later so don’t worry. With practice, you will have a quicker time of identifying rocks. Getting acquainted or reacquainted with geology would help. There are a number of books available at your disposal in the library, bookstore and even online which can tell you a lot of things that a beginner should know about rock collecting.

Probably a better source of rock samples would be quarry sites, cliffs, and outcrops. You won’t probably find good specimens in fields. Take note of places where excavations are being conducted, you might good samples there.

As you become more and more engrossed to this hobby, you will learn that the neighborhood is just a tip of a huge iceberg. There are a lot more places to go to find unique rock specimens. If you’re going to be ambitious, why not aim for the United States interior plains and lowlands. If you travel a lot then this hobby might be perfect for you. Traveling around the world will get you to places where a wide variety of rocks such as sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic can be found. Hawaii for instance is a good place to find samples of igneous rocks since the whole chain of islands is practically made from it.

Now, a rock collection does not mean having a bunch of rocks stored in a box or bag and showing them off to interested friends. A mark of a good collection is presentation. You don’t need to put everything on a table or case but rather a select choice of the best specimens you have would be more appropriate. Your rock collection needs to be labeled correctly as well.

Beginning rock collecting is not the bigger challenge, but maintaining it would be. However, like what have been mentioned earlier, all you need is genuine interest on the hobby and everything will fit into place.

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