Stone hunting in Utah

[JoJoDapyro]

When I found P.A. I had already been bitten by the Bowyer bug. I had yet to even start on a bow. Then came the knapping bug. While making a decent bow takes time, wood is generally available no matter where you are. Stone is too, depending on how much time you are willing to spend to get it, and what quality is available in your area. The problem is that it goes fast, especially while learning. I first found the page https://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=38062.10;wap2
 While it has some good info on what to look for, I feel it is missing some useful information. In Utah we mostly have "Public" lands. While these lands are owned by the Federal Government, a lot of times there are mining claims in the vicinity, so care must be taken to not step on toes.  The linked page has a list of tool stone that can be gathered in Utah. There is no locations given to where someone could find these types of rock. Some are a bit more simple, Brianhead Chert is more than likely found in the vacinity of Brianhead, Sheep Creek Quarizite near sheep creek. While Sommerville Chert is a mystery, as searching the name brings up nothing from Utah. There are a few places to gather Wonderstone in Utah. Vernon hills is a simple one, with only a 5 mile dirt road to travel to gather it. I have found it difficult to work (As have some of the real knappers here), Heating it to 680 for 12 hours helped some, 24 hours destroyed it. My thoughts on it are that the quality of it varies too much to be able to go out and gather it and be safe with what you got. There are a few different locations to gather Obsidian in Utah. Pumice Hole mine is one, Topaz Mountain is another. Missing from the list are: Chalcedony, Jasper, Agate, Petrified wood and Variscite.

Last weekend I was planning on going to a location that is purported to have Chert. It is a place on the west side of Utah Lake called Broad Canyon. It is a bit of a jaunt, and the only information that leads me to believe it has chert is one photo I found. Nothing else. A Rockhound friend told me he has been there, and sent me a photo of what I believe is Variscite. But, I was deterred by the heat, and that my wife had other plans. I searched various word combinations online and found a doctoral dissertation from 1970. It outlines the areas that do contain Chert. 96 pages long, but very well worth the read.

I have decided to preform a search of my area for knappable stone. I will search the way you do for anything, in ever widening circles.

Please feel free to chime in and help me with ideas that I am missing. This is a work in progress.

[JoJoDapyro]

July 3 2015.

I decided to go to a canyon just off the salt lake valley today. I had seen big rocks that appeared to be chert on another trip here. It was too hard to chip anything off of with small chipping hammers, so I took the sledge.

Butterfield Canyon is just south of the Kennecott open pit copper mine. Kennecott owns the land on the north and south sides of the canyon, and most of it is posted. It runs from the Salt Lake Valley, to the Tooele ( Tooilla) valley, across the Oquirrh (ocher) mountains . The north side of the road is posted just off the road. The south side allows some access. I came to a pull out and had a little hike. The first thing I noticed is that there is an abundance of Service Berry. I collected 5 types of stone. None are chert. One is clearly slate #6. #1 is a stone that I find a lot in landscape. It is hard, but chips well, and has a glass like clink. #2 is slate like, #3 is hard and smooth, with very small white veins in it. #4 is also slate like, but is almost purple in color (doesn't show in the photo). #5 is a photo of one of the boulders along the road. They are HARD, I still wasn't able to break a chunk off. It looks a lot like a grey chert, except it has a metallic fleck in it. There are about 40 of these rocks along the south side of the road, placed there to keep people from driving across the creek. They range in color from tan to almost black. Smooth to the touch, and they do fracture concoidally. Any Help in identifying these would be awesome. What lead me to Butterfield is the copper mine. They also do get gold and silver from the ore, but Copper makes up the majority of the metals removed. I figured I would use a little science in my sleuthing. Gold is usually found along with Quartz, Quartz is a component of chert. Maybe I'm crazy. 

[JoJoDapyro]

The other photos.

[Outbackbob48]

Jo, #5 looks just like some stuff I find in NW Penna. Ours is smooth because it was pushed in here with the glaciers, Must have been on the bottom of tons of ice and scrubbed till smooth, inside is a grainy grey material that reminds me of Rhyolite. Bob

[Majuba Tom]

I can't tell much from the pic's but #2 looks like it has some dendritic patterns found in chalcedony's (agate Jasper's chert's and so on). You are not crazy about the gold and quartz line of thinking. I know of a few ancient lithic chert quarries within gold mines here in Nevada. The only reason they were studied at all was because of the environmental impact studies the mines had to complete prior to starting production.

Test the stones you have. Give it a good smack and see how it chips. Then heat treat it around 350 to 400 deg for several hours and try it again to see if it gets better. You might get lucky.

Tom

[JoJoDapyro]

Where in Nevada are you Tom?

My next outing will be Broad Canyon. About 30 minutes on the highway and about 45 on dirt. Updates soon.  Also an update on the wonder stone. It is very hit or miss. I spalled all of it out that I had left. Some is great. Tight, smooth, waxy. And some is coarse and brittle.

[Majuba Tom]

I am in the Dayton area of Nevada.

[JoJoDapyro]

I've been as far as Tonapah on my way to Amargosa Valley

[JoJoDapyro]

July 5th 2015

I woke up and decided that there is no time like right now. I picked up my dad and we headed to Broad Canyon. It is about 60 miles from my front door, 15 miles of it are dirt. I have never been to this area before, so I didn't quite know what to expect, or even what I was looking for. The dirt road is good, if it is wet I am sure it is a monster, as it is Dirt, not base, or gravel. Keep on the main road until it ends at a large camp site. Due north of the camp site are white hills. The hills look like crushed gravel, almost like over burden from a mine. as soon as we walked to the road going to the hills I started to notice small chunks of Jasper. The hills are littered with Jasper, from small to cinder block size. As like all of the other jasper I have attempeted to spall, it broke in blocks. I don't know if this is due to weather wear, or just the nature of the raw stone. White, Tan, Yellow, Orange, Red and Pink. As we walked further back into the hills we found a few areas with a vein exposed. As you will see in the photos, the jasper has open cracks, I would assume those were made as the stone formed. I am not going to do anything with the large peices until I get some more info, and slab some of them out. So, Broad Canyon does have knappable material. 

[JoJoDapyro]

And the rest. The last one I am going to pressure flake and see what I can get out of it. 

[TRACY]

Looks like you got some workable rock! Sounds like freeze fractured rock on the stuff that broke into blocks. Just need pieces big enough to make points from and not necessarily huge perfect rocks.

Tracy

[JoJoDapyro]

Do any of you heat treat jasper? How long, what temp?

[AncientTech]

If I were to hunt where you are at, I would take a multi-pronged approach to locating materials.

I would look for mineral records via Mindat, archaeological records, historical records, the materials of other flintknappers, etc.

Here is an impressive crescent from Tooele County, Utah, which may or may not reflect local materials:

http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/cast-page/crescentdugwaybutterflyhnd.jpg

Mindat Chalcedony sources, in Utah:

http://www.mindat.org/locentry-514657.html

Utah state projectile point guide:

http://www.projectilepoints.net/Search/Utah_Search.html

Here is a 1980's report on fluted points from Utah, which sources a number of lithic materials:

http://content.lib.utah.edu/utils/getfile/collection/USHSArchPub/id/5464/filename/5499.pdf

Utah rockhounding sites:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zroxMVbXghvU.kVgdVPVcdTvo

Utah obsidian beds:

http://www.utahoutdooractivities.com/obsidiancollecting.html

Utah is probably comparable to Arizona, where I grew up, in that there are probably rocks and minerals galore, of all shades, types, and colors.  I bet if you do enough research you will end up finding locations for chert, jasper, chalcedony, agate, crystals, obsidian, petrified wood, and the like. 

You will probably be able to heat treat some of the materials.  But, other materials may not be given to heat treatment.  If not, you will probably have to change methodologies, in order to work some of the other materials, in Utah.

Also, some of the materials may be weather cracked.  My understanding is that some of the historic tribes dealt with this by burying the stone in the ground, and building a fire over it.  The heat caused the moisture in the seams to expand.  And, this - at least in theory - causes the rock to split along the lines of the seam, or the cracks.  Since the stone is underground, there is much less danger of a stone exploding, and sending shrapnel everywhere.  Also, this process may work better if the material is first soaked in water, for some time.

[JoJoDapyro]

Thanks for the info. I like more reading on knapping.

[JoJoDapyro]

Went back to Broad Canyon today. We were supposed to have a knap-in today, but for some reason the museum was closed. So two of my old coworkers and I drove out to see what we could see. We found some good white chert on the hillsides. Its good to k ow its there. We took our finds back to the truck and had a visitor. He cruised through. Lucky for him he is protected in Utah. A couple showed up on their ATV. We talked about wood and stone. I gave them an arrow head. Good feeling to give them away.