Saffordite Searching?

[Dweuro]

Happy Fourth of July all!  Hope that everyone is enjoying the day!

Periodic rock hound here from Colorado Springs.  Retired military and stayed in the area!  I've planned a three day weekend coming up with my 12yo son and fiance.  We are going to be spending several hours around Safford, AZ looking for a few saffordite and fire agate. Then up into the forrest to camp and then onto Sedona to the vortex's!!  Of course on the way home will be stopping to visit Meteor Crater outside of Flagstaff before bringing it in.  Should be an amazing weekend of camping, awesome locations and hopefully a few stones will cross our paths!

My issue is I have not been able to really find any relative detailed information about location to start looking besides south east of town.  I have no idea distance, public, BLM land all that!  I know here in CO its getting more and more difficult to just go out and scour with all the mineral rights claims popping up everywhere!   We want to come down and collect a few for personal use.  But be respectful of the local area and land. 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!   Have a great Fourth everyone!!

[Morlock]

Never heard of saffordite until now. Seems like it's nothing but terrestrial obsidian.

I would try to contact some of the mineral and gem clubs near where ever you plan to visit. I'm sure if you do a Google search, you'll find plenty of contact information on them. Maybe there's some meteorite clubs in Arizona you can contact also.

Good luck

[Dweuro]

Thank you Morlock,

I tried all the above but have come to a stall point.  I was unable to get anyone within the area or nearby with knowledge of any areas let alone saffordites  (to include BLM, Tuscon Gem and Mineral Society and a nearby rock shop).  The rock shop just over in NM said they believe the rock shops in Safford have all closed down.  I am going to do some recon of some areas that interest me south east of town.  When I return I may do a small write up.  We will definitely be hitting up Black Hills and Round Mountain hounding areas for fire agate and some other neat stones though!  

[weaver hillbille]

 Looks like there many many mining claims north of town

http://www.mylandmatters.org/Maps/Mining.html

https://cosmoquest.org/x/blog/2016/06/hunting-for-saffordites/

Edited July 5, 2017 by weaver hillbille

[d_day]

I'd never heard of it before. You've probably seen this already, but this looks like the best information I've run across.

 

https://cosmoquest.org/x/blog/2016/06/hunting-for-saffordites/

[chrisski]

Here's a book that has a lot of sites around AZ, and you can view about half the book for free:

https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-Arizona-Guide-States-Sites/dp/0762744499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499298377&sr=8-1&keywords=Rockhounding+Arizona#reader_0762744499

I think I used this book to look for some turquoise diggings local to central AZ, but could never find them.  It's on #50 East of Morriston, but that's not listed on the free edition.  There's a couple of sites IVO Safford, but those are not on the amazon site.  It also doesn't list Saffordite in the index.

You could research and find claim owners, contact them, and get permission to look for the Saffordite.  Safford is in Grahm county.  I do some prospecting in Yavapai county, AZ and the county recorder website has a mailing address for claim holders and the best thing is its easily organized for mining records searches.  Perhaps Grahm is the same way.  I would expect the results of that would be a set of claims along a mile long area which you could send letters to the owners asking permission.  This would probably take me hours to do.  For a few hour stop may not be worth it.

The book I mentioned above may find you a site of interest along your route.  Another of my favorites is "Roadside Geology of Arizona."