Looking for safe harbor

My friend, Jack, will fossil hunt

come hell or high water

and we've all been putting that theory to the test.

Jack's been reduced to digging in areas that have been dug out due to their extreme ease of access but, as he said, he's "looking for any port in this storm."

And then he finds this:

an 8" claw core from a giant ground sloth.

Hmph.

That man could find a 4" meg in the clearance bin at WalMart.

Well, I need a port in this storm, too!

The only accessible sights that I know of are a 3 hour drive from my house 

but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

I always feel a little trepidation when I set off

in my kayak into unknown waters. I motored past a fisherman on the shore last weekend and he called out, "Aren't you afraid of that water?"

"Yes, I am," I called out with a smile

and continued on my way.

I have yet to find a large fossil, like that sloth claw, but luckily those who went before me left some tidbits behind.  A big horse tooth, glyptodont scutes, tortoise leg spurs, turtle scutes and a couple of broken scutes from a giant armadillo.

I feel a little bit better now.

Decent hemis, along with a few other shark teeth

and 5 of my favorites: porcupine fish mouth plates.  Would've been 6 but I dropped one.

And...wait for it...

A great camelid tooth and tiny horse incisor!

The 2 gator teeth on the right are nice, too.

I like my jaw fragments.

Most of what I've found is from small animals like armadillos, opossums, raccoons, etc.

UFO

(Unidentified Fossilized Object)

(I'm sorry my fingernails are grungy.  I just got done fossiling!)

I haven't been able to ID this fossil, yet, and 

I'm still trying to ID this groovy find:

What are these things?

Take a closer look...

Hmm...

I'm still clueless.

It's been suggested that it is a clump of hackberry seeds, an important forage food for early humans, but it's also been posited that it's a cluster of ostracods, also known as seed shrimp.

The jury's still out but I'm intrigued.

Here's a recent necklace I made with a Peace River meg.

If you like, please Tweet, etc, etc, SolOpsArt at Etsy.com.

My fossils need to sing for their supper.

Making do in Georgia

Rainy winter, river's too deep, blah blah blah...

You know the drill by now

but I've been keeping busy with other rock-hunting based activities.

I took a 7 hour drive to Lagrange Georgia with my digging buddy, Pam, in tow, 

to visit the famous Hogg Mine.

The goal at the Hogg is to dig into decades-old spoil piles from defunct mining operations in search of...

Rose Quartz

or, as I like to call it,

Strawberry Ice

(hopefully some crazy drug lord hasn't already coined that term for something else)

and Aquamarine Beryl

(these are Pam's fantastic finds.  The red color is from iron and will be removed later)

It is winter in Georgia 

and I kind of forgot about that

so we did some last minute shopping...

then started digging.

The owners of Hogg Mine, Chris and Don, are so nice and helpful; it's really a fun experience...

if you like digging for hours and getting very, very dirty.

Here's how one of the regulars does it:

He digs down and not too far back so that the rocks and dirt above him don't collapse 

and crush him to death.

Good to know.

If you look closely, you'll see his little mascot embedded in the dirt above, and a nice collection of beryls in his bag below.

When a neighboring digger 

had to remove his jacket and stated,

"Don't laugh at my sweatshirt,"

What could we do but look?

And laugh.

Every time I went back to my truck, 

there were more and more rocks in it.

If you ever visit the Hogg Mine, follow Pam's strategy and have Chris and Don load boulders for you.

The know how to spot the good ones through the layers of dirt and mud.

Pam got some stunning treasures to take home!

The reason I went to the Hogg Mine

was because I bought a used lapidary slab saw from Chris.

Why waste money shipping the beast when I could pick it up in person AND spend the day digging?

Why did I want a slab saw?

I think Lil' Wayne says it best:

And here is my very first coral slab:

(Please forgive the greasy fingernails.  It's a messy hobby)

This weekend the river dropped just long enough for me to dig

and here's my fossil haul:

I captioned the photo for clarity.

That's ok because I brought home a 75lb fossilized coral head

and in case you're wondering,

What wouldn't I do with a 75lb coral fossilized coral head?