> There are a few species you can sometimes find in washes when they get buried during massive floods, but other than that most museum quality specimens are impossible to find for rockhounds.

Well, that's kinda how it has to be, right? If art museums displayed the artwork anyone can paint, they wouldn't be interesting to most people. Most museums are about displaying the stuff you otherwise wouldn't be able to find, buy, or make. It's still fun to learn to paint, even if you're no Rembrandt.

To be fair, there are some museums that go for depth instead of scarcity and I personally find them more interesting. The Computer History Museum does this pretty well. They have some truly unique items, but also plenty of stuff you can buy on eBay, just presented and explained well.

It isn't that difficult to find excellent mineral specimens, some boulder-sized, on National Forest and BLM land in the mountain West. There are many places where people have never been or where a fantastic-looking mineral deposit was ignored because they were too small (common with e.g. copper minerals).

Most of the ones I've found were incidentally discovered while hiking around off-trail in the boonies. I do always bring my Estwing with me just in case though.

I live in the northeast USA, there are very few public collecting spots around me. It makes me really sad listening to people who have been in the hobby for a long time talk about all the amazing collecting sites they used to frequent before they were paved over with parking lots or condominiums and whatnot. There isn't a whole lot of "wild open space" left around here to poke about in. Another big factor for keeping the public out of collecting sites that do still exist is that some people can't be bothered to be respectful in their collecting.

The Loudville lead mine in Easthampton MA, which used to be open for public collecting, recently closed due to irresponsible collecting and severe erosion. They closed off the entire recreational trail system, which has far reaching affects far beyond the rockhounding community.

I'd collected once at Loudville shortly before it closed and found a couple scraps of Pyromorphite, some tiny Wulfenite you need a microscope to see, and some Malachite. I am sad that I can't go back, now.

You can read more about it here: https://newenglandforestry.org/newsroom/recreation-on-the-ro...

I don't expect, or really even want to find museum-quality specimens, I just want the ability to explore the minerology of my home region on a physical and personal level.

"The best most of us can really hope for is some small piece from tailings."

Just this past weekend I pulled a plate full of rare tellurides out of Otto Mountain for a Caltech PhD. You have to be very observant to find a good spot to acquire minerals out of the ground, but excellent large specimens are still out there to be pulled.

The Monte Cristo basin in Washington is high enough in Arsenic that you shouldn't drink water there. There are warning signs at trailheads EG the trailhead leading into Gothic Basin and Gothic Peak.

There are several different kinds of asbestos and they differ radically in their level of risk and the worst kinds are not (generally?) found in California. So that signage might just be out of an abundance of caution.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the numbers you have a lot more risk of serious injury driving to and from the hike than from the asbestos, particularly if your hiking doesn't involve intentionally disturbing the ground. :)

For the many posters on HN in the bay area-- watch road cuts for green rocks, asbestos co-occurs with serpentinite all over the coast range-- and serpentinite is the state rock! You can easily find some with asbestos, usually grey/white fibrous strands on the rocks. Don't grind it up and huff it, but you can thrill your friends by showing them some boogieman-mineral you found.

(It's only fitting that the state rock is technically known to the state of california to cause cancer... :P)

This makes me want to find an actual rice museum that isn't the IRRI.

I did that with my kids and it was pretty cool !

Regarding etymology, for many centuries the substances that are now called "sulfides" were called "pyrites", after the "iron pyrite" i.e. the iron (II) disulfide, which is the most abundant sulfide mineral.

At the end of the 18th century, Lavoisier together with a few other French chemists have created the modern systematic chemical nomenclature, so the old term "pyrite" was replaced by "sulfide" (like also "vitriol" was replaced with "sulfate").

For who does not know, "pyrite" comes from "fire", i.e. from the pronunciation in Ancient Greek of the corresponding word that was cognate with English "fire" (Ancient Greek or Latin "p" corresponds with English "f").

Striking pyrite produces sparks, which can be used to start a fire.

I agree. Here are a few more nice images for the GP: https://www.google.com/search?q=pyrite+cube&tbm=isch Remove "cube" from the reach, to see the not cubic samples too.

And Galena! Another wonderful metallic mineral that forms cubes.