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Comment by djmips | Hacker News Reader

I was lucky to live in an area with a lot of interesting semi-precious stones that you could just find by looking around.

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I wasn’t aware that there were places that had semi-precious stones just lying around. Where are you from?

Anywhere with granite will have lots of quartz of various types

Yeah, I dug up a bunch of quartz crystals, some granite containng small fossils (tiny clams, small spiral shells etc), and a few pieces of turqoise in the backyard as a kid. How interesting the rocks in your own backyard are depends a lot on the geological history of the area though.

If it contained fossils, it wasn't granite.

Herkimer in upstate NY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herkimer_diamond

Precious/semi-precious stones are rather arbitrarily defined. Various forms of chalcedony (agates, jasper, chert, etc) can often be called such, and are very common sometimes.

I’ve buckets of agates and jasper, among other things (like petrified wood) that I’ve found in fields while doing my ag job here in the willamette valley of Oregon. Oregon as a whole is amazing for rockhounding. There are some spots where I can’t go a several feet without seeing a 1cm or larger agate just laying there. Makes it hard to concentrate. I’ve mostly got it out of my system now though.

Cleaned up a bunch thanks to an ultrasonic cleaner, and one day will tumble a bunch to give away.

https://www.blm.gov/visit/sunstone-collection-area

Among others, but this one is one that is well known among gemhounds/lapidarists.

Oh, of course. The Bureau of Land Management.

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