Lapidary / Gemstone Community Forum

I live in a region of Australia that has many rhodonite deposits, today me and Margie found another new deposit on my property, its only pink but has some jasper mixed in, fine grain and some yellow, this is on a fault zone, not far from our local nephrite jade, does not come close to the blood red rhodonite my area has but great to find a new one on my own land.

that's a nice mix with the manganese intrusions running through it. When I polish my local pink rhodo the manganese turns into little shiney lines and is quite striking against the pink in the sun

That's some really nice material.  Hope you find it without the cracks.

Our local rhodonite also turns to jasper in fault zones. The transformation has been studied by local geologists. The rhodonite slowly transforms into spreessartite garnet , the massive form, in a classic outside in weathering pattern. The garnet is usually yellow-gold but does occasionally have pink areas. The color saturation in the yellow-gold areas is a bit less than in your orange areas.

Thanks for your feedback, there are no cracks, they have been fused back together and rhodonite has formed in them, hope to find better deep color when we dig down, heaps of manganese on ground over a 20 meter area.

I really wouldn't call the better materials blood red though. More like intense deep pink IMO.

(https://gemstone.smfforfree4.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zbestvalue.com%2Fimages17%2F1011-rhodoniteCU.jpg&hash=0c9a08296b7ac17fc9233271d174b7c8)

The Tamworth region where I live has produced some very good reds, ok may not be blood red but definitely red, very rare now, some I have done in the past, all these are fine grain, the cab belongs to my wife Margie.

Those carvings are beautiful, mick. Very jealous.  yes16

WOW Mick, I had seen the heart before (I think) but not the others. Off the chart with my favorite color.
Jim

Nice stuff.

 Mick nice to have somewhere to dig close to home have fun digging.

We wend back today to our new find, about 15 minute walk from our home steep country, we are only in the loose rocks on the surface still, HEAPS of manganese, big chunks, looks like coal, its exposed for about 20 meters in a large jasper outcrop, a nice pink piece Margie found today.

We think it may contain pyroxmangite, see those long strand crystals going through the jasper in the middle, this deposit sits on the peel fault, could easily be the case  dunno28

Kool stuff and on your own land.  I am jealous.  All we found on our small lot were some farm animal bones like from cows and horses, that the kids found while playing in the yard.

I have seen blood red gemmy specimens of Rhodonite and kick myself all the time for not buying one about 10 years back.  Beautiful stuff.

Thanks Mark, a pic of the piece Margie found cut.

Found some great material today, one large boulder that has some pink lightning bolts with jasper mix, the pink is getting brighter and cleaner, and some bright yellow, great feeling to find this new site. 

Really nice, like the beautiful pink color yes16.  For any jewelry pieces you make, would you zero in on the pink or leave some border around for contrast?

ken s.
NYC-USA
(anxiously waiting for my trim saw to arrive) eyes12

Thanks, found a great rose pink boulder, and today Margie cut the first cab .

That pendant really turned out well. Nice work and I sure wish we had nice pinks like that here in iowa. Home of limestone and granite. Ha  yes16

Dickb

That is great material.  If you could find tons of it, you could do really well selling rough.  I love the yellow and the other shades and with the contrasty black lines, WOW.  Besides the pure transparent gemmy stuff, I am going to say that I think you have the best Rhodonite i have ever seen.  That is some kick ass stone.  Beautiful rich pinks, nice yellows and other tints, great contrasty black lines and some light honey like areas.  The honey like areas remind me of calcite that i have seen in some slabs made up of blue apatite, black rock, and honey yellow calcite.  That slabs i have are soft, but still pretty kool.  Your stone is definitely amonst the best Rhodonite out there, besides the red gemmy stuff which i don't even consider to be in the same class of stone as your Rhodonite.  They are like 2 separate stones, one for lapidary (your new rhodonite) and the other for carving or maybe even faceting (gemmy red rhodonite).  Have you ever found any gemmy red with metallic stone attached and still on matrix, as in a specimen.  I know Broken Hill in New South Wales is an area where they consider the gemmy red rhodonite amongst the best specimen material to be found.

Mark

Thanks Dick & Mark, it also contains pyroxmangite, in the pic you will see some long crystals running along the bottom left, I have some that has been tested from a friends mine in my region and these look the same, 60 mm long, I do still find good red but getting rare, all the rhodonite we have found so far has a thick manganese layer, easily 1 in thick, still only scratching the surface, this sits on the peel fault zone, I have a copper deposit that's close by, heaps of metamorphic rocks, interesting about the yellow garnet, will love some more input on that. have not found any large crystals that would facet, but have seen some from our region.

looks like a solid retirement fund. great looking material. dig on

Beautiful material...Superb cabs!

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We went back to our new rhodonite find today, found the main solid manganese seam, left a 100 kg piece that is dug in like a tick, contains good pink, I think the gray green material surrounded by pink rhodonite is tephrite, heaps of jasper in the mix, the large boulders above Margie are jasper.