Arizona Rocks & Minerals: A Field Guide to the Grand Canyon State (Rocks & Minerals Identification Guides) - Softcover

Lynch, Bob; Lynch, Dan R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591932378 ISBN 13: 9781591932376

Publisher: Adventure Publications, 2010

Synopsis

Your Must-Have Guide to Arizona’s Rocks and Minerals

Get the perfect guide to rocks and minerals in the Grand Canyon State! This book by Bob Lynch and Dan R. Lynch features comprehensive entries for 106 Arizona rocks and minerals, from common rocks to rare finds. Learn from the fascinating information about everything from agates and copper to turquoise and gold. The easy-to-use format means you’ll quickly find what you need to know and where to look. The authors’ incredible, sharp, full-color photographs depict the detail needed for identification―no need to guess from line drawings.

With this field guide in hand, identifying and collecting is fun and informative.

About this title

About the Author:

Dan R. Lynch has a degree in graphic design with emphasis on photography from the University of Minnesota Duluth. But before his love of the arts came a passion for rocks and minerals, developed during his lifetime growing up in his parents’ rock shop in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Combining the two aspects of his life seemed a natural choice and he enjoys researching, writing about, and taking photographs of rocks and minerals. Working with his father, Bob Lynch, a respected veteran of Lake Superior’s agate-collecting community, Dan spearheads their series of rock and mineral field guides―definitive guidebooks that help amateurs “decode” the complexities of geology and mineralogy. He also takes special care to ensure that his photographs compliment the text and always represent each rock or mineral exactly as it appears in person. He currently works as a writer and photographer in Madison, Wisconsin, with his beautiful wife, Julie. Bob Lynch is a lapidary and jeweler living and working in Two Harbors, Minnesota. He has been cutting and polishing rocks and minerals since 1973, when he desired more variation in gemstones for his work with jewelry. When he moved from Douglas, Arizona, to Two Harbors in 1982, his eyes were opened to Lake Superior’s entirely new world of minerals. In 1992, Bob and his wife Nancy, whom he taught the art of jewelry making, acquired Agate City Rock Shop, a family business founded by Nancy’s grandfather, Art Rafn, in 1962. Since the shop’s revitalization, Bob has made a name for himself as a highly acclaimed agate polisher and as an expert resource for curious collectors seeking advice. Now, the two jewelers keep Agate City Rocks and Gifts open year-round and are the leading source for Lake Superior agates, with more on display and for sale than any other shop in the country.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Quartz

Hardness: 7 Streak: White

Environment: Found in all environments

What to look for: Light-colored, hard, glassy crystals or masses

Size: Quartz varies greatly in size, from tiny pebbles to foot-long crystal points

Color: Colorless, white to gray, yellow to brown, as well as blue, green, purple or pink

Occurrence: Very common

Notes: Quartz is the single most abundant mineral on the planet. Composed of silicon and oxygen (also known as silica), quartz is a very hard mineral that occurs in an incredible variety of forms, from large crystal points to chalcedony, agate, chert and jasper, which are all composed nearly entirely of microcrystalline quartz (microscopic quartz crystals). Quartz has a glassy luster, exhibits conchoidal fracture (when struck, circular cracks form) and is harder than the majority of other minerals, so identifying quartz is usually easy. Quartz crystals are six-sided and often form beautiful points, which are sometimes called “rock crystal.” Most quartz, however, won’t be found in well-formed points. It is most commonly incorporated into rocks such as granite. In fact, quartz is probably present in any hard, light-colored rock you find. When small quartz crystals coat the surface of a rock or a mineral, it is referred to as drusy quartz. There are many color variants of quartz, which makes it a diverse collectible. Purple quartz is called amethyst, pink is rose quartz, yellow is citrine, gray or black is smoky quartz, and greenish or bluish quartz often has micas or chrysocolla within it.

Where to Look: Quartz is extremely common and can be found virtually everywhere.

About this edition

• Publisher: Adventure Publications
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1591932378
• ISBN 13: 9781591932376
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252