Showing posts with label prospecting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prospecting. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

GEMSTONES, MINERALS & ROCKS OF WYOMING

A book by Hausel at Amazon
Gemstones, Minerals and Rocks of Wyoming is a book for collectors, rock hounds, mineralogists and prospectors that will provide you with information on what the gems and rocks really look like in Wyoming. Written by the Wyoming's expert on minerals, W. Dan Hausel, this book will even tell you where to look to find these rocks and minerals.

Over a period of 29 years, the author found and discovered several minerals that were previously unreported in Wyoming and also discovered more than a hundred new gemstone and gold localities.

The Planet News notes that prior to 1975, Wyoming was known as the 'Jade State'. But this all changed over the next 3 decades primarily due to the efforts of two geologists - one was W. Dan Hausel.

This book tells you about diamonds and their host rocks, where to find diamond deposits that also include several other gemstones. The book tells you about the sapphire and ruby discoveries by the author and how his research led to these discoveries and why there are more deposits to be found. It tells about the discoveries of the largest gemstone deposits on earth in Wyoming, made because of the author's unique understanding of the geology of the state. Discussions on the discovery of one of the largest opal deposits in North America occurred right under every one's noses, but no one paid any attention. Imagine opals as large as 80,000 carats sitting next to access roads in an oil field being ignored by oil field workers, rock hounds and even many geologists.

Look what others have written about this book that is rated at 4.5 stars -

Buy it, you will like it
Kurt Kephart (Billings, Montana)
If you are into rocks & minerals of Wyoming, this book gives you a 30 year short cut. The author has combined his expertise, experience and passion for geology into a no-nonsense, x marks the spot, book. I recently took several trips to Wyoming from my home state of Montana and found the Sweetwater agates and white opals in the location given in the book. I am looking forward to my next adventure to Wyoming.

Paulette Dilks
Dan puts in more information than the casual reader might be able to assimilate. However I believe the book is useful and interesting to all readers. He literally tells you where to go (you may have to climb a mountain) to find gemstones and his history (and I have followed him on his free blog and on CanadianRockhounder) bears out his personal success at this.

Cecil C. Chittenden   
This is the best book I have ever read on Rouckhounding, For detailed info on specific areas of Wyoming this book can't be beat. Dan Hausel is an expert in this area.

Jill Randolph  
I was surprised that diamonds aren't always found in coal!  This was very informative on different minerals.

Mario Slavinec
I did. I followed him into two field trips. He is very nice, very very knowledgeable and happy to share...

The largest iolite gemstone ever found -
24,150 carats discovered by the author
in Grizzly Creek. However, this gem is
dwarfed by the stones left in outcrop.

A 1,750 carat iolite gemstone found at Palmer Canyon by
the author. The highest quality iolite of its size in he world.



Imagine wearing this gemstone. All of
tan rock behind the geologist is solid
iolite. It extends from the geologist, to
the top of the photo and
down into the earth for an unknown
depth. The author could not figure out
how to get this stone out of the Laramie
Mountains. It likely weighs 10 to 20
million carats!
One of the largest rubies ever found. The
author mapped the Red Dwarf ruby deposit
in the Granite Mountains and found dozens of
large rubies partially replaced by zoisite. A
half-dozen other ruby deposits were found
using geological methods.


One of many large faceted rubies and sapphires from the
Palmer Canyon discovery by the author.




Gem-quality pyrope, spessartine, almandine garnet and
chromian diopside found by the author.
How and where to find gold! Available at Amazon.