Thursday, March 1

Gneiss Lil' Widdle Chert

I am up burning the candle at both ends about ready to go to bed. However, I wanted to post a picture of a piece of chert I found up around Mayfield, KY when I was working for the USGS. It looks as if someone had started making an arrowhead (however, chert does fracture concoidally, so it may just appear to have been widdled-on). I don't know if it was recently widdled or if it was an attempt by a Native American who never got to finish it. I like the latter better. Anyway, here it is.

3 comments:

Mark said...

Your photos look like NASA space pics of asteroid fly-bys. How do you take such moody, atmosphere-laden photos of rocks?

Here's a coincidence for you. The one time that I was in Mayfield, in 1990, I walked around a riverside field with Aaron. We were looking for arrowheads. I found a small round piece of hardened clay. It looked like a marble. I later showed it to a park ranger at the Falls of the Ohio and he agreed with me that it was probably a home-made toy or game piece fashioned by or for some pioneer kid.

Brian said...

Another coincidence for you. One of the guys at the USGS, Zeke, is an avid Native American artifact collector. By collector, I mean goes out looks in stream cuts and washout areas looking for artifacts. He once found a ball carved from a rock (not really sure whay kind it was)with little intricate carvings. Judging by its size, weight and carvings other experts told him it was a ball used for a popular game played by Native American children.

Mark said...

I realized a few days ago that I actually found that little marble in Maysville, not Mayfield. Sorry.