Stalking NC Rhyolite

[arappaho]

This post is a little long winded. You may want to go get a cup of
coffee or something.
I've been gearing up for the Knap-in next weekend.

NC Rhyolite is about my favorite thing to hunt. Our NC Slate Belt is
full of many different types, colors and flavors. The variety at each
different site or out-cropping is amazing and sometimes seemingly
endless. Sometimes there are dozens of different types at one
locality. Much of it is uninteresting and un-knappable, but that's
what makes finding the good stuff so rewarding and fun.
For example, here's a few points that were all collected from right
around Wake Forest, or Northern Wake County. There are atleast
9 different types of rhyolite represented here.



And, I have to show a close-up of the quartz one you can't see well
in that pic, even tho it's not rhyolite.



Anyway, my stock pile of good knapping material has been
dwindling,


and I need to find some new good collecting areas. I had the time
yesterday to go check on a site that I haven't been to in a couple
of years. It's been dry enough around here and deer season isn't
open yet, so it was a good time to do it.

There are areas of good to great material all along this powerline.



This is true of about anywhere in the slate belt; One good sign
that there is good knappable rhyolite around is when you see the
ground covered in flakes and broken pieces of the stuff. You know
you are at an old quarry site where the aboriginals harvested
material, and if it was good enough for them...............



Close-up


Now some of it just won't do, like this piece of leaverite.



Here's another out crop close by that wasn't good enough material
to use, so it wasn't quarried.



And a piece of leaverite from it.


Here's a sample of what made it home to be busted up and checked
out closer.


Still need to find a better source, and I will be working on that, but
if we fail to tame the Rhyo beast, or get tired of fighting it, (Rhyolite
is a very hard material to knap for most people), I've got plenty of
obsidian slabs to take a whack at.




Thanks for looking.
Hope to see some of you next weekend.
Joe

[rickb29212]

Hey Joe, save me one of those long narrow slabs of mahogany obsidian. I'll be arriving at the knap-in Friday around noon. Bringing wife and K9 with me too. Charlene wants to see the guy make and fire the pottery. Rick B

[hydrogeologist]

Looks like that good quality rhyolite is a whole lot more solid than the highly-weathered stuff Dave pointed out to me at the construction site in Chatham and by the Shingletrap Mine. Were those smoothed off by the elements or were they rounded alluvial boulders deposited by some ancient flood?

Also, do you knock a chip off to test the quality or to check for good color?

Lawrence

[arappaho]

No problem Rick, That's just a few of the 50 or so obsidian slabs
I've got ready. The pottery guy will be there Saturday and Sunday.
He'll be making a few pots and has some already done and ready to
be fired. Glad to hear Charlene is coming. I haven't seen her in over
a year. Let her know if she gets bored, downtown Chapel Hill is only
about 2-3 miles down the road.

Hey Lawrence, Good question.
I don't know if i can answer it 'for sure'. I'd have to say the rounding
is half the elements and half alluvial. The material hasn't moved far,
but it has moved some. All of the seams or veins are fractured insitu,
and the fractures fill with clay, but, as with many areas around here,
the top few feet will appear alluvial. Like it was once totally
saturated muck. I have never dug down more than 2 feet at this
site. Some 'veins' are broken apart and pieces are rounded, other
'veins' are just fractured and still angular. This is also the spot I am
finding the spherulitic rhyolite. The only spot I have ever seen any
from in NC.

Like I said, there are literally hundreds of different varieties, colors,
etc., of rhyolite in the slate belt. The stuff at the Chatham site is so
weathered I'm not even sure what some of it is. But 10 miles down
the road is an old abo quarry site where the rhyolite is pristine.
Of those pieces that made it home with me the other day, they all
had areas of good material, but only one rock was the good stuff
all the way thru.



Perty sweet, huh.
One reason I love hunting the Rhyo beast is because every once
in a while you'll pop open a piece like that.

Joe

[romare]

Got my coffee and enjoyed the heck out of reading yer post and looking at the pics. Thanks Joe!

[arappaho]

Thanks, Mark. Glad you enjoyed it!

I don't know if you will see this again, but I don't care if I let the
cat out of the bag. You ought to see the tessin Scott found today!
I'm not talking to him anymore. ;D

Joe