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SW Saskatchewan | Once we got a rock-picker (not the five finger type) I rather enjoyed rock picking if I could keep up. With glaciation moraines and the still existing Cypress Hills caprock patches, it was not hard for the rocks to outnumber me.
I have been told that the blue-gray(greenish) rocks are a type of copper ore but they are rare here, found only in deposits for glacially transported rock from SW Montana, The granite-quartz rock displayed is truly a feeder chain wrecker-the rough surface will cause it to lock solid on the feeder house floor and bang. Also would lodge solidly in discer or packer gangs and had to be beat out with a crowbar or hammer-no way were you going to pry one of those thorny things out.
The "best" type of rock were the waterwashed flinty Cypress Hill capstone remnants-perfectly smooth they would pass in and out of discer gangs and most important-no feeder floor on a combine was going to stop them-straight into the rock trap or cylinder bars!
As a side note when I was with the RM, our Cypress Hills rock was the end of the line for many gravel crushers, desperate they would bid for a job that was priced higher than most gravel smashing jobs but those flinty old rocks that were used in the ball mills in trail BC to smash up ore could also smash their machinery.
My favorite time for rock picking was from November through February when the ground was frozen and other jobs had slacked off. The sun was low in the sky so it would outline rocks setting on the surface and in the morning they would be coated white with frost against the brown dirt. Sitting ducks for a mechanical picker.
Edited by Redman 4/23/2014 15:41
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Picking rocks..... any geologists on board?
