Do you know?

[spec]

Found this in a creek in the Kings Mountain NC area and thought it looked different. The host rock is light and porous. It's the turquoise colored stuff that I am curious about.

Thanks for any information.

[amythestguy]

Thats a tough one

[spec]

Could it be turquoise, dose it occur around Kings Mountain NC?

[arappaho]

Hey Spec,
I doubt it's turquoise, but have no idea what it might be.
The only place I have ever heard of turquoise being found on the east coast is
in Virginia, and that is a rare type. ( Someone please correct me if any of you knows
of another locality on the East coast.)
To figure out what the blue-green material is, it would be helpful to figure
out what the rest of the rock is. It looks very weathered.
What are the black spots? Mica?, Horneblende?, Schorl?, etc.
How hard is it?
I'm going to guess it's Prehnite because it looks like a
botryoidal crust.

Joe

Joe

Joe

[arappaho]

Oops. I don't know how how how that happened.

[amythestguy]

Crack a corner off a see what it looks like inside. Weathered material can look totally different on the outside than in.

[4cornersrocks]

If I found that where I live I would think it might be some kind of copper secondary mineral on a piece of limonite. It looks a lot like turquoise but I'm guessing chrysocolla? Is the green stuff heavy, is it waxy or chalky?

[spec]

4cornersrocks, I think you are right. I looked up chrysocolla and from what I can tell, it would make since. It is found in NC and is associated with copper.

While dredging the same creek yesterday, I found what I believe to be a few small oxidized copper nuggets in my clean up material. Also, the information I read stated the it occurs in a material that is a kind of cemented mixture of smaller rocks and that is what the host rock appears to be.

So we will call it chrysocolla!

Thanks, I would have never figured it out on my own.

[wobnwickiwocks]

Arappaho, there are a couple other turquoise sites in the east that I know of- all
in Pennsylvania. They are the Bachman mine in Northampton co. near Hellertown,
Moore's Mill and Waggoner's Gap in Cumberland co. Check out Robert Beard
article titled "Pennsylvania Turquoise" in Rock and Gem, Dec. 2007.

[arappaho]

Thanks, Wobn'. I'll look for that issue, but I googled turquoise in Penn.
and found a site on Turquoise in the Eastern US. There are localities in
Penn, Va, Ga, Alabamma, and Arkansas. ( It doesn't mention NC or SC.)
A whole lot of info I knew nothing about. Info and localities.

spectrum.troy.edu/~barwood/occurence_of_turquoise_group_mi.htm

So it's chrysacolla, huh. Another mineral I never thought of occuring in NC.
So what's the black stuff?

Joe

[dr00bie]

Your link came up 404, so I googled it... here is a corrected link,

spectrum.troy.edu/~barwood/occurrence_of_turquoise_group_mi.htm

Drew

[wobnwickiwocks]

Thanks for the correction. Very informative stuff.

[arappaho]

Thanks, Drew.
I thought that page was interesting, too.
Pretty much all new news to me.
Joe

[dwtdenver]

I think it might be aurichalcite. It is a copper/zinc mineral.

[nmonyx]

Just a wild guess Smithsonite forming?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Smithsonite-Namibia.jpg

[jwnagy]

It may also be psuedomalachite.