[Rockhounds] Not your father's Mineral Collecting

[(s) Jack Dann]

Coming from the SE of England where Chalk is the main shore face rock forming the cliffs of both the White Cliffs of Dover and the Severn Sisters I feel that I'm in a fairly good position to explain what the flint is used for, some flint can be hewn out of the Cliffs, as it was and until fairly recent times since the 'Stone Age'; when the chalk cliffs are eroded to form the beaches (such as in Dover) around 95% of the beach is composed of flint that has been weathered into pebbles, which would be perfect for boats to use as ballast, better speimins (such as those not tarnished by the waves or diagenitally altered) could be used to produce rifle flints so admired.


Jack
________________________________________
From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com [rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of DonH [donhalterman at q.com]
Sent: 25 April 2009 18:00
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Not your father's Mineral Collecting

Lawrence Rush wrote:
> BTW, I think most everyone has seen the Dover, England flint, from the
> famous chalk "White Cliffs", but if you haven't, I have posted a photo
> of this one at the bottom of the page at the following URL:
>


One last thought: doesn't this material come from the white cliffs of
Dover?  I would imagine a lot of this was simply weathered out and could
be picked up.  This would have made sense for ships leaving from the
Dover area.  They would have needed *something* to use as ballast
(though one wonders why they weren't carrying trade goods).

On a similar note, I've heard that divers off California have found
fluorescent Franklin specimens on the bottom.  Apparently some ships
used the mine tailings as ballast when traveling from NY/NJ to CA.  So
it does happen.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the flint nodules could have been mine
tailings from local operations.  There are plenty of uses for calcium
carbonate besides chalk.  In any case, someone using ballast is going to
want something cheap, preferably free, and taking away mine waste would
have been a mutually beneficial activity for both parties.

Best,
Don
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