Fair Brings Rocks of Ages to Visitors

Nine-year-old John Sargent became a rock collector a year ago. At his uncle’s urging, the Ventura boy began collecting stones wherever he went--the beach, the mountains, even the Grand Canyon.

On Thursday, the rock hound followed the scent straight to the Gem and Minerals Building at the Ventura County Fair.

“Wow! Look at those,” John said to his dad, Jim.

The boy was pointing at a plastic container filled with geodes--globular stones that can be cracked or sawed open to reveal either a cavity lined with inward growing crystals or colorful layers of rock.

A few minutes later--with his dad $7.50 lighter--John had his own geode, sawed in half.

“See that? That’s quartz crystal,” John said, pointing to an opalescent layer of rock. His finger slid to another color. “And that’s silica.”

Hundreds of people push through the exhibits in the Gem and Minerals Building each day, said Bob Backus, who with his wife, Mary, has watched them all go by. It is one of the most popular exhibits at the fair, he said.

People are fascinated when they see his various rock machines, Backus said. One continuously tumbles a load of small stones with water in a contraption similar to a miniature washing machine, slowly rounding and smoothing them.

Another one polishes slabs of stone, and a third piece of equipment saws those geodes and other stones in half. But the machine that gets the most attention is the sphere maker, which turns roughly carved rock balls into shiny orbs that look like glass.

It took 25 hours of continuous smoothing on the sphere maker, Backus said, to turn a three-inch-diameter of coprolite into a ball that looked like marble with green and orange streaks through it. The common name of coprolite, Backus explained, is petrified dinosaur dung.

“Eeeewww! Are you kidding,” said Madelyn Bennett. “You mean that’s really dinosaur poop?”

Backus assured her it was. And it dated back to the Jurassic period, 190 million years ago, he said.

Bennett, visiting from Big Bear Lake, started laughing. “Oh, a Jurassic Park decoration!” But when it came time to pick out a souvenir for her daughter, Bennett demurred on the dung.

“I think I’ll get her some nice geodes.”

In another part of the building, Miriam Tetreault was meticulously linking tiny sterling silver hoops to create a bracelet. Wearing jeweler’s glasses, the work was going slowly for Tetreault, a member of the Oxnard Gem and Mineral Society.

Children seem interested in her demonstration, she said, but many adults said they wouldn’t have the patience to do the craft.

“But I’m hooked,” she said. “When you do it right, you have something to show for your time.”