Tincalconate after Borax, from nearby Kern County, California
I thought it might be fun to take up rockhounding.
Corundum, from nearby Riverside County, California
And then I thought it might be smart to go see what minerals look like. So we took an excursion to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. 
Wulfenite from Arizona
And then I wondered… where to start my rockhound adventure?
Beryl with Albite, from Brazil
So I read a little bit from the Audubon Guide to Rocks & Minerals. It says that it’s best to get to know the basic types of rocks, and where to find those rocks.
Quartz, from nearby Imperial County
And then I started picking up fun looking rocks on my dog walks.
Gypsum, from nearby Los Angeles County
I’m pretty sure I found some quartz.
Sulfur on calcite, from Italy
My front porch is now littered with rocks, none of which are as pretty as these.
Mesolite on apophyllite, from India
Yet.
MK pix 
Great pictures! We are a rock loving family and enjoy especially this part of the museum! I could easily spend hours there. Your photos bring back memories and remind me how much I miss the museum. 🙂 Isn’t it fascinating how beautiful each piece is? Though I never find anything that gorgeous in real life 🙂
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I love looking at these gorgeous minerals. I especially like the ones they let you touch. Awesome. Next time I’m going to just take the light rail. There’s a train stop practically at the back door there.
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Definitely such a treat to see and touch the gorgeous minerals 🙂 I always wondered about the train…would make getting to the museum a lot easier
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Riding the light rail is a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy people watching.
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Will have to try sometime 🙂
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This sounds like great fun. I took a geology class in college long ago
and found it fascinating.
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I also took geology in college and I just loved it! I am now the proud owner of a Mohs Hardness test kit! When I return to the Natural History Museum I will take pictures of the map for my rockhounding adventures.
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I remember using the Mohs in geology class. I look forward to future posts about your transformation into a rockhound!
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How exciting and rocks are definitely beautiful.
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These minerals are marvels, like little flowers from the earth. The museum even has a vault where the really valuable minerals are kept. Never even made it in there.
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Nice set of photographs, MK. I collected rocks and minerals as a kid…still do, although less formally, and so does Leah. We have rocks on our porch, mantle, in the basement, etc. She just returned last night from a trip to Pennsylvania and brought me a nice chunk of limestone full of fossils. Thanks for rekindling the joy of rocks and minerals. 🙂
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Well, nice set of minerals, but the mineral gallery was very dark (most of the lighting came from spots illuminating the specimens). I think I cranked the ISO up higher than I needed to.
I’ve found some really cool rocks on my walks, which I chose for their weirdness instead of their mineral identification opportunities. One of these days I’ll do a post. Not sure they’ll be as alluring as flowers, but what the heck!
Lucky you to have a chunk of limestone with a fossil! I always wanted to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to do rock collecting, but I think I’m too old now to ride a donkey for how ever many hours it takes to get to the bottom.
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Weird rocks can be cool…I’d be interested in seeing that post. I haven’t had time to study the limestone but it looked like it was mostly fossils. As to riding a donkey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I was too old for that years ago. 🙂
I noticed the higher ISO noise and that the white balance was off a little in these. Depending on your photo software you might be able to tweak those a little if you want to, especially if they are in a RAW format. Thanks for the reply, MK.
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Fun! Museum collections are marvelous. Harvard and the Peabody have really nice collections. I love looking at and collecting rocks from my river walks. I had so many that now they reside in the pebbled courtyard, along with shells collected from visits to the beach.
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Based on these comments, it looks like many of us collect rocks. I thought it was just me 🙂 .
Last time I went to the Huntington we visited the Chinese gardens. They use considerable quantities of rock. Water-sculpted boulders, really. And patio space with floors of pebbles that are almost mosaic, but not quite. Whoever designed it was also a rock lover. Or maybe that’s common in Chinese gardens?
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I think most of us are fascinated with rocks – they ARE pretty cool to look at. Is it the Japanese that have large stones surrounded by gravel that is raked to look like water?
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Now that you mention it, the Japanese garden does have that gravel raked to look like water — a nice space with ginkos inside the walled space. But this was different — it was the Chinese garden.
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That looks like a ton of fun!!!
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I tend to pick hobbies that require a lot of study. That’s fun too. But I’d really like to find my first pure mineral specimen.
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Don’t know what causes it, but I suspect that most of us have that urge to pick up and collect interesting rocks. My late husband carried it to an extreme where we packed rocks during moves from Oregon to California to Utah and back again to Oregon. As far as collections go, I suspect that stamps or feathers are far easier to move from state to state.
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Hahaha! I can only carry but a few rocks per dog walk. The field guide recommends (for study purposes) rocks about the size of a fist. That’s a lot of rock!
If I see some stamps I’ll pick up all I can carry d 🙂
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wonderful, MK!
perhaps the ones on the porch
are just as happy not being cut in half 🙂
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I shall not molest them, just study them. And probably photograph them.They haven’t tried to run away.
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