Pink Halite
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Distance from Beatty: 107 miles
Last October while Ryan was gallivanting around Europe I snuck off to Trona to my first Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society GEM-O-RAMA. I was really late getting there and everything had been picked over, but I still managed to get this fairly cool piece of pink halite for his birthday (Friday).
Pink halite comes from Searles Lake right across the road from Trona. Every year Searles Lake is flooded, and when the water evaporates all that remains are brine pools. The halite crystals grow in these brine pools. The flooding destroys all of the the previous year's halite, so the crystals grow new each year. This piece is 13 inches long.
The water in Searles Lake contains bacteria that turn red when they die and decay, which then makes the water red, so the halite crystals that form out of this water end up being various shades of pink, red or even burgundy.
One of the highlights of the GEM-O-RAMA each year is the field trip where people go out into the brine pools and collect their own halite specimens!
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Unless otherwise noted all photographs on this blog are my own, taken by me, copyright owned by me.
Distance from Beatty: 107 milesLast October while Ryan was gallivanting around Europe I snuck off to Trona to my first Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society GEM-O-RAMA. I was really late getting there and everything had been picked over, but I still managed to get this fairly cool piece of pink halite for his birthday (Friday).
Pink halite comes from Searles Lake right across the road from Trona. Every year Searles Lake is flooded, and when the water evaporates all that remains are brine pools. The halite crystals grow in these brine pools. The flooding destroys all of the the previous year's halite, so the crystals grow new each year. This piece is 13 inches long.
The water in Searles Lake contains bacteria that turn red when they die and decay, which then makes the water red, so the halite crystals that form out of this water end up being various shades of pink, red or even burgundy.
One of the highlights of the GEM-O-RAMA each year is the field trip where people go out into the brine pools and collect their own halite specimens!
---
Unless otherwise noted all photographs on this blog are my own, taken by me, copyright owned by me.
posted by K Hubert at 2:38 PM
6 Comments:
That is so beautiful - looks almost edible. What fun it would be to fossick for your own. Will you go again?
Is there anywhere besides Searles Lake you can pick this up? I'd love some, but I'd love it even more if I found it out in the field myself!
Oooooo, a new word - 'fossick'
According to dictionary.com it's exclusively Australian and means:
1. To search for gold, especially by reworking washings or waste piles.
2. To rummage or search around, especially for a possible profit.
[...]
What a great word. I'm not sure we have an exact equivalent in American English, so fossicking it is for me from now on. Thanks, Jude.
As for fossicking your own pink halite, it's a pretty icky process because you're right down in the brine pools the whole time. You need to have hip boots and stuff or else be prepared to sacrifice your shoes and clothes. Not my cuppa; i don't do icky. :)
Mid:
Trona/Searles Lake is The Place in this part of the world for pink halite. Google pink halite and you'll see what I mean. Your profile says you're in San Francisco; if you are, that's mighty doggone close, m'lad. Second weekend in October. Come on down!
And yes, Jude, I'll definitely go back. This year I'll be there when the doors open and, hopefully, get a much finer piece.
I have some photos of Death Valley that I took this past Novermber. I thought you might be interested...
http://www.jimherzog.com/nov2005.asp
The majority of these were taken in the Zabriskie Pont area, specifically, hiking along the north ridge.
'Fossick' is one of my favourite words. It needs to be shared with everyone throughout the English-speaking world. I noticed that I used it quite recently here in my Christmas post: http://hinterlander.typepad.com/weblog/2005/12/jingle_bells.html
If this interests anyone else, here's an article I wrote about how to go collect at Gem-O-Rama:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4551987_do-gemorama-trona-california.html
I love that everyone that sees the pink halite wants to do Gem-O-Rama.
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