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FEATURE STORY
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Good collecting on the high desert — an outing in the area around Moab, Utah, produces some lovely chalcedony. |
Walking the tarmac to a small twin-engine plane with no cockpit door was a refreshing change from the herdlike humiliation of modern-day airline security. The scarcity of passengers and remoteness of my destination showed itself in a wholesome lack of bureaucracy at the boarding area, especially notable for a huge international facility like Sky Harbor in Phoenix. Like a scene out of some Indiana Jones movie, the pilot hollered back to the handful of passengers in the 18-seater that he would buzz his parent’s house before landing in just a few minutes. He proceeded to make the steepest turn I’ve ever made on a commercial flight, and then glided smoothly onto the strip just outside Page, Arizona. One plane change and some more tarmac later, I had arrived at the nearly deserted terminal building for Canyonlands Field outside Moab, Utah. A youngster appeared behind the one counter and confirmed that I had indeed arrived in the right place. Before I could strum a single note on the guitar I found cased in the empty flight-school office, my host and guide, Scott Owen from down the road in Paradox, Colorado, showed up, and we were off. VIEW OF THE TERRAIN.
The general terrain in the vicinity of the airport is sparsely vegetated sedimentary rock, which means you have large flat surfaces in some areas, and stark outcrops of cliff face in others, with most of it completely exposed. In places where rivers have eroded canyons into the formations, and where upheavals have thrust former lakebeds high into the sky, the geologic history of this place is plainly displayed. Long vistas are common on the largely undeveloped landscape. The Spartan development that exists is clustered in areas remote from each other. Before you hit this countryside yourself, get a hold of 150 Million Years of Canyonlands Geology, a poster available at shops all over Moab. A rockhound’s dream, it has standout features for a local geology guide. It was created in 1977 by local entrepreneur Lin Ottinger, owner of the Moab Rock Shop and the local tour company that bears his name. On a single sheet of paper, every key aspect of the landscape is illustrated, identified, categorized, located, and described in just the right amount of detail. Each layer blanketing this entire area contains an historical record of the planet’s evolution, with imbedded morsels of interest to collectors. Depending upon the layer, you’ll find marine fossils, shark teeth, dinosaur bones, dinosaur tracks, petrified wood, minerals, and gemstones. FINDING CHALCEDONY.
We would be collecting today from the Morrison formation, deposited roughly 150 million years ago. The Ottinger guide indicates a dozen good fossil and mineral collectibles in this strata, recognized by its distinctive red and green shales. Huge domes of green weathered stone loomed before us as we pulled over on a gentle rise. We walked a short way off the road, toward Arches National Monument, visible on the skyline. But who had time to look at the skyline when the ground was absolutely littered with glassy multicolored chalcedony of exceptional consistency?
Mixed in with all the chalcedony were occasional pieces of petrified wood
and some fragments of dinosaur bone. The wood was unremarkable, a listless slate
gray in color without dramatic grain, and no pieces of significant size, at least
at this spot. I guess it’s true; I’m getting jaded, dismissing any
find of petrified wood so cavalierly. The dinosaur bone fragments could easily
be overlooked by an untrained eye as just more rocks, or possibly agates or chalcedony. The occasional dino bone shard presents a special situation. Although casual collecting without use of mechanized gear is allowed on public lands such as this, no vertebrate fossils may be legally collected on public lands anymore, under highly restrictive laws enacted in 1976. WHOSE ROCKS ARE THEY?
The idea that picking up some rocks in a vast wilderness is now a federal crime is irksome, to say the least, to the hardy souls who live out in this geologic wonderland. These rocks have been sitting out here sunbathing for hundreds of millions of years, but if you pick up the wrong one, you’re eligible for the federal slammer. Well, not exactly. Enforcement is neither available nor planned for arresting casual collectors, and hasn’t been since Congress passed the law. It’s mainly for show, and to be on record with the policy. Perhaps legitimate purpose exists in preventing wholesale desecration by large commercial firms, though none are standing in line, and other laws would kick in at that point. It’s just one more sliver of federal controls that seem to have no end. It calls to mind a warning from James Madison: “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is to-day can guess what it will be to-morrow” (The Federalist Papers, #62). The modern rockhound labors under this weight of increasingly expanding laws. Collectors affect such tiny portions of the earth’s surface, let alone each foot of strata beneath our feet, which laws this restrictive seem anachronistic. A single mile of roadway does more to rearrange nature than every collector alive does in years. In this writer’s opinion, such intolerant, inflexible, anti-exploration, freedom-reducing laws should be relaxed. Bureaucrats who piously propose them should be, well, spanked. When collected, these remnants of the planet’s past serve enormous purpose. They are educational, spread interest in geology, paleontology, and similar sciences, become subject to study and learning, and connect us physically with our history. They are decorative and conversation starters. They appeal to young and old. Left on the ground in the wilderness for millions of years they are devoid of value, stripped of meaning; it is as if they do not exist. Carefully boxed, cataloged and treasured in the collector’s cabinet, where do you think the rocks will be in another several million years? Still part of the surface of the planet, of course. Imagine that. Prohibiting the casual collecting of vertebrate fossils is mindless elitism. Allowing only official, authorized, scientific, government-approved rock collecting by designated special individuals is deliberate elitism. Sorry, that’s just the way it is. So anyway, be sure to drop any scraps of dino bone you may find while you’re collecting that gorgeous chalcedony.
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Truly beautiful cabbing material, the translucent luster of this find is hard
to picture from a photograph. An unearthly glow sheens from vibrant earth tones.
Finding them was easy, as the thin surface dirt was blown and washed away around
the tops of these, nature’s floor tiles. It’s the carrying that presented
the challenge. Bring a big bag.
The full route through this Bureau of Land Management territory is roughly a
vertical oval, with the entry point at 9 o’clock, and initial travel to
the northeast. The first leg is called Klondike Bluffs Trail, it is plainly marked,
on the east side of Route 191, and a short distance south of the Canyonlands
Field airport that serves Moab, Utah. Several small tributary jeep trails intersect
the main dirt-road route. The fork is pretty obvious when you get there, but
ahh, the legendary uncertainty of any good rock hunt . . .
