I have only a handful of pictures shot with my phone inside the gift shop, which is fairly small but absolutely packed with surprising rock and mineral samples in just about every color of the rainbow. I didn’t want to linger too long without buying something — but making up my mind was a serious challenge! I also appreciated the […]
The final installment of my mineral posts has taken awhile to get here, and it took me a fair bit of digging (no pun intended!) to find more information about the featured rocks. Whatever I did find initially seemed to come from either Wikipedia — quoting scientific sources that I struggled to understand — or alternative health websites focused on […]
Here are a few more of the rocks and minerals I found on display in the Mining and Ranching building of the Angels Camp Museum. Borates are crystallized salts that contain boron. They are used in many different applications, from fertilizing plants to forming heat-resistant glass and fiberglass insulation. They’re most heavily concentrated in dry, waterless environments like California’s Mojave […]
You may remember a couple of weeks ago I published a post about the California State Mining Museum in Mariposa and mentioned that I wished I could find a mineral museum nearer to where I live. Well, it just so happens that I did find a very nice if small collection of minerals from various places around the world on […]
I’ve never been all that interested in learning about rocks and minerals, but after watching this episode of California’s Golden Parks, I’m seriously thinking about a road trip to Mariposa to get a closer look at this particular collection. I had no idea that California has not only an official state rock but also a state mineral, a state gemstone, […]