East Texas Quarterly Magazine Summer 2013 | Page 19

He’ll show them to youngsters and talk about how
real rockhounds test stones by licking – getting a
rock wet brings out the colors. Then he’ll hand them a
coprolite and invite them to investigate.

Jurassic Park admirers can find amber, raw or cut and
polished, loose stones or mounted in jewelry, but be
prepared to pay a pretty penny if the stone has a fossil
insect in it.

Now if you don’t know what a coprolite is, it looks like
any other rock might, hard and rounded and filled
with interesting swirly colors. You want to see the
colors better, so…slurp! And then the big reveal: a
coprolite is a fossil, more specifically, petrified dino
poop. This brings out squeals from the kids, of course.

Another draw that fascinates kids and adults is
breaking open a “thunder egg.” Geodes form when
there’s a hollow space in sediment or lava where
water seeps over millions of years. Crystals that form
from minerals in the water encrust the interior with
glittering colors, but all you can see from the outside
is a lumpy dull rock.

Yes, you can buy your very own long-dead dino dung
at the show, probably from a vendor who hauled it
all the way from Montana or Africa. You can’t buy a
T-rex but there are plenty of smaller fossils, crystals
and mineral specimens of every color and size.

You pay for a geode by weight. Some are as small as
a chicken egg and others as big as a soccer ball. Then,
with a special tool, they crack the egg and expose the
interior. The buyer is the first human being on earth
to see what nature created inside.
Demonstrations are a big part of the show. See
how gem cutters facet a stone. Watch a cabochon
(rounded and polished gem stone) emerge from a
dull slab of rock, and then have it set into a pendant.
Learn how professional beaders tie special knots so a
necklace drapes like liquid.
Dealers know their materials and can tell you where
a rock is from, why it is rare, what it is used for. Club
members are happy to identify samples that visitors
bring in for ID.
Club members also spend a lot of time before the
show making prizes for the kids’ spinning wheel (a few
adults play too), and every rockho