The Rockhounding Encyclopedia: The Gem Hunter’s Guide to Identifying and Collecting Over 100 Unique Gemstones, Minerals, Fossils & Geodes | Featuring America’s Top 500 Rockhounding Sites

I found this book entertaining and informative. It provides a nice balance of information on how to identify various rocks, their characteristics, and where they are commonly found. Photos of rocks are included, along with a little history of how some rocks are used in industry. For people like me who are only slightly versed in the study of geology, it was interesting to read about how the rocks were formed. In Chapter 9 there was an explanation of how this can be relevant when out in the field looking for interesting rocks. By having an understanding of how they are formed, you can take a step back, evaluate the surroundings, and identify possible locations for the various types of rocks. Chapter 11 includes information on a state-by-state basis on what type of rocks can be found. GPS location information is also included. The last chapter in the book includes a helpful discussion on tools and safety items that you should have with you when rockhounding. The author commented that 'Rockhounding is more than a hobby - it's a journey of the heart and mind', and 'Rockinhounding is the thrill of the hunt and the adventure'! I agree :-)

It's an excellent resource to have on hand

its a pore reference there is a location in Kansas this book calls a spot for blue stone that is a joke. The GPS puts you in the center of a town on the square of a park that has a large rock called the Blue Stone . thought the author put a joke spot in it as a dry hummer joke

Good information

Very nice. Grandson loved it

If you are just getting into collecting fossils and minerals this book is for you. I enjoy all the information this book displays for a casual audience. Having the book going into the history of rock hounding was very interesting and something I never knew about. I enjoyed the last section discussing the location where you can rock the hound. It is really hard to find up-to-date information online and if you're not in a rock-hounding group you might know where to start. There are only 3 things that are bad about this book this is due to my studying geology. I wish the minerals were organized by composition, I wish there was more of a large scientific section, and lastly, I wish there was more in the fossil section. I highly recommend this book for people who casually enjoy geology or have a rock collection.

This book shows you rocks, and some info about them. So that’s cool. However, when I flipped to the back to the “Best Rockhounding Sites in the US” section and saw that it listed Lambert’s Cafe in Sikeston Missouri as a place to find fossils and shark teeth, I suddenly lost confidence in the text on these pages. They throw rolls at you while you sit in oversized church pews. There’s a 50 cent claw machine where you can get those mini rubber duckies but no fossils or shark teeth that I’ve ever seen

This book is a great resource for those just getting into the hobby! There is a wealth of descriptions and pictures for all sorts of minerals and gems, as well as a handy guide of locations that might be worth a visit. I enjoyed having a ton of this information in one place, and there was clearly a lot of effort taken to put this together. All in all, I would have enjoyed more specimen examples for each stone as there can be a huge variety of different patterns for each, and would also have appreciated more information for each of the locations, as many sites are private. Regardless, this is a great one stop shop and would be really useful to have in the field.

We are rockhounders, very good source of information Easy to read & understand Recommend to add to anyone's library Thank you

Il libro è in inglese quindi potrebbe risultare non semplice per tutti, ma in realtà è scritto in maniera molto semplice e quindi facilmente comprensibile, magari con l'aiuto di un dizionario italiano inglese. Si fa una generale introduzione all'hobby del collezionista di minerali, riportando anche delle foto abbastanza carine di una selezione di essi (i più comuni). Riporta anche un elenco di siti dove trovarlo, purtroppo solo americani, ma è comunque interessante, per gli appassionati della materia, conoscere queste informazioni.

This book is very interesting and very informative. Everything you ever wanted to know about Rockhounding is in this book.

Brilliant informative interesting book 👍

This is not an encyclopedia. It’s like an outdated, poorly edited, magazine. « Expansive directories of top rock hounding sites across continents »… I was sold to this claim, but it’s a complete joke: it mentions a few sites on the last two-three pages of the magazine : one place in Germany, one place in France, etc. Terrible. Don’t buy this crap.