by Don Irving

Bulging Pockets
We love collecting rocks. When we return from somewhere our pockets are usually full with things we have picked up. We don't always know what kinds of rocks we have found, but we find it a rewarding family activity to collect and catalog them. We also frequent rock stores, and we have most of the standard items you would find on the shelves. The rock images used for bullets and buttons in our Web pages were all scanned in from our collection.
Rocks are natural aggregates or combinations of one or more minerals. They are usually classified into three main types. Igneous rocks form within the earth by crystallization of molten magma. Sedimentary rocks form at the bottom of lakes and oceans from minerals and grains of other rocks that settle there. Metamorphic rocks may be igneous or sedimentary in origin, but they have been altered into new states by extreme pressure or temperature.
It is often difficult for beginners (like us) to tell just what we are looking at because of the enormous range of possibilities for the minerals and processes that have lead to the rocks in the world around us. Two excellent books to help in the regard are "Eyewitness Books: Rocks & Minerals" by Alfred A. Knopf and "Rocks, Minerals & Fossils of the World" by Chris Pellant with Roger Phillips. These both have high-quality photographs and excellent text descriptions to help you figure out what you are looking at. There are also Internet resources on mineralogy, geology, paleontology, and collecting. Some starting points are listed farther below.



Our Rock Collection
Our collection is only a few years old. It started when Michael had a first-grade assignment to collect and report on local rocks. We found twelve in the hills around San Jose that were more interesting than we had expected to find. We didn't know what they were, so we started getting books on the subject. Since then we habitually look for rocks when we hike the hills, and we never intentionally drive past a rock store. Our collection now consists of store-bought rocks and ones we have collected ourselves. We have scanned in some of them, and you can see them below.

If you click the left-most item in each line, you can step through the photos in the line without having to come back to this article page.

Store-bought rocks
These are the usual items you would find at a rock store. We own nothing rare or expensive, but they are fun to look at as a family. We have them organized into trays that we can pull out and look over when we want. This is an annotated gallery that will be fun for young people to learn to associate names with appearances.

Rocks we have picked up
We have them organized in our collection by where we found them, not by rock type. One reason for this is that we don't know what many of them are. You are welcome to help us identify them if you are able. Most of these we have collected ourselves. Some were collected up by Pat's parents on their trips around the world.





Internet Resources
Here are some Internet resources featuring rock collecting, mineralogy, geology, paleontology, and other relates subjects.

• GemZone - The non-stop Gem and Jewelry Tradeshow (extensive!)
• Rockhounds Information Page (good links for mineralogy and paleontology)
• Smithsonian Gem & Mineral Collection
• Mineral Gallery
• The Field Museum Online
• Geological Time Machine at U.C. Berkeley
• David and Sandra Downs' Rockhounding Page
• Ken's Fluorescent Minerals
• Opaz Mountain: Rockhounding Tips
• Bob's Rock Shop: Introduction
• The Sincosite Page, by Black Rock Design
• The Ammonite Page, by Jean-Pierre Cassely
• Trevor Hudson's Rock Collection
• Dad's Rock Shop
• Big Ten's Gold Maps
• Mineral Search Safaris to Mexico
• Paleo Place
• DMS Mining, Minerals and much, much more!
• A Resource Center for Gold Maps for Recreational Prospector
• Rockhounding Arkansas
• Great Basin Minerals
• Hop Scotch Minerals

Irving Family Web Pages

Don Irving ([email protected])