Beach Combing Treasures found on the Oregon Coast

Rewards from Monday 

Monday the Oregon Fossil Guy and I had a nice afternoon checking out the beach. Conditions were clear and we pretty much had the beaches to ourselves.  We had a rather successful day.

I hadn't been out there in some time to see these conditions exposing the tide pools out beyond the normal tide line.  I came home with a nice piece of bone, some petrified wood, beautiful fancy jasper, brecciated jasper and a few agates.  Much to our disappointment the blue appearing agate on the right is NOT a blue agate but just a cloud agate with a bluish rind.  Hopefully today's storm will remove the sand necessary to expose the gravel bars further up the beach.  Please be careful out there and don't try beach combing today with this storm lasting until 6:00 tonight. Today is definitely a good day to storm watch from the safety and comfort of your warm beach front hotel room.

Fossils, a Concretion, Petrified Wood etc. 

A Beautiful Weekend on the Oregon Coast for a Festival!

How to buy a Rock Tumbler for the holidays...

< - - Consider carefully a more useful size rock  tumbler for medium sized loads or larger material up to 2¼" (size of a golf ball). Lortone's single 4½lb. barrel features a 10-sided interior surface (measuring 5¾" by 3½" deep) for optimum tumbling action and a capacity for 5 cups of rocks.

Here on the Oregon Coast beach combers will find many small stones but you can also find a selection of agates, jaspers and petrified wood in larger sizes. Don't let yourself be sucked in by an attractive low price on a rock tumbler only to find you are limited to polishing stones the size of a quarter and smaller.   

Rock tumblers to polish your agates

FACETS in Newport, Oregon offers something everyone from the rock hound to the jewelry maker, collector and craftsman alike. Jewelry and lapidary supplies, equipment plus rock tumblers from 3 pounds to 65 pounds on their web  site.

Fossil Field trips in the Newport Area

Garrett's World of Geology 5 featuring: Fossils of the Central Oregon Coast at Newport. Astoria formation at Beverly Beach, Moolack, Jump Off Joe, Otter Rock... Fossils, Geology, Rock Hounding for agates, jasper, etc...

Complete Agatized Clam

The translucent clam (clam belly) to the left has to be one of the largest completely agatized specimens we have seen in quite awhile. It just had a small area of the outer shell remaining plus the agate was amazingly clear and pretty well defined. This just goes to show you how the agates were formed here on the Oregon Coast some 15 - 20 million years ago. Agate filled anything hollow and took on the shape of that mold.

This beauty was found yesterday here in Newport by Bruce a rockhound from Reedsport, OR sharing a couple of days at the beach with his lovely and talented wife Kathy. Nice find Bruce, another great beachcombing find on the Oregon Coast!

Editors Note: Sorry the photo came out so fuzzy, the clam to the right is a fossil used for comparison.