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16d • Lapidary & Workshop ⚒️
Ever wonder what stories a rock can hold?✅️
I recently took a closer look at this stone I found high up in the Purcell mountain range near kimberley bc and it turned out to be far more than “just a green rock.”
What it appears to be is serpentinite — a metamorphic rock formed deep in the Earth when ancient ultramafic rocks were altered by heat, pressure, and water over immense time.
What’s in this stone:
🟢 Green areas: (probably antigorite-rich) (main rock)_(serpentine)
⚫ Black magnetic spots: likely magnetic with pyrite
⚪ White hard zones: likely Quartz These are the tougher veins running through the stone.
How it formed (beginner-friendly version):
Think of this rock as a piece of Earth’s history that was “cooked and changed.”
- Deep underground, dark magnesium-rich rocks existed.
- Water moved through cracks and altered those rocks into serpentine.
- Iron in the system helped form magnetite.
- Silica-rich fluids later moved through fractures and deposited quartz.
- Mountain-building lifted these rocks up into the Purcells where they can now be found.
That means this one stone records alteration, mineral growth, veining, and mountain uplift.
Pretty amazing for something sitting in your hand.
What type of rock is it?
It appears to be a serpentinite with quartz veining and magnetite, likely tied to altered ultramafic material.
That’s a lot of geology packed into one stone.
I love sharing this kind of discovery because you don’t need a geology degree to start reading rocks — you just need curiosity.
💬 What do you see in this piece? Have you found serpentinite or unusual mountain stones in your area?
Lapidary work done by sheldon evans.
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Ever wonder what stories a rock can hold?✅️
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