Hey Cody,
There are some nice minerals in your area. Do you know of any amethyst sources in your area?
I've been wanting to get up into your area and do more rockhounding, but haven't made
much time for it yet. Knapping material in your area, and most of Virginia for that matter,
is usually some tough stuff. Mostly jaspers, cherts, and quartzites. Our NC rhyolite seems to
peter out north of the Roanoke River, in quality anyway. The jaspers were usually collected
from creek and river beds as cobbles. These cobbles were especially utilized down SteveTs'
way, ie; along the coast. The method of cracking into the cobbles is called "bi-polar", where
you set the cobble up long ways on an anvil and strike it from the top to try and flake or
break it down its length giving you some edges to start working with. Real hard way to go.
The quartzites aren't much easier.
The cherts are probably your best bet. I've seen a few nice looking types but, like I said,
just haven't found the time to get up there and look around much. Just because you know
"where" to go, doesn't mean you are going to "find" it, or be able to "get" it.
I enjoy
hunting rocks, but research, travel, and collecting are time consuming. One nice thing about
knapping material over other semi-precious type stones, is that when and if you do find a
source and it's on Private Property, it doesn't have much value to the property owners so
it is usually easy to get permission to collect. It may cost you a point you make out of the stuff.
Anyway, don't mean to rattle on too much here, so this is about the best site I've found for info on
VA lithic sources.
http://www.storiespast.com/client/LPC/Lithics/references.xmlClick on Lithics there next to Main Menu and that will give a list of some types.
For instance go down and click on Bolster Store chert. That's a pretty well known one.
Hope this helps some.
Happy Hunting, Joe
