Swamp Bog (Gary Green) cab cut by Erik Martinez, The Lion's DenLagoon Necklace and Earrings
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This necklace features a lovely Gary Green cabochon. As the story goes, the material was named by Gary Macintosh, the founder of the McDermitt Rock Shop in McDermitt, Nevada. It has many other names including Larsonite, Swamp Bog, petrified bogwood, McDermitt Green Jasper, Harlequin Ribbon, etc. The name Larsonite is explained by a comment from Gary Larson on dirtyrockhound's blog which says, "Raymond Larson is my father, I was with him when he first found the Larsonite." It sounds to me like it should be called Larsonite but experts contend that based upon the convention established in 1875, the suffix "-ite" should be reserved for different mineral species and not be used to distinguish varieties of a material like Jasper.
Regarding the "petrified bogwood" and related names, in Agates III, Zenz explains that the area in which Gary Green is found is within a 35 km. caldera on the Oregon/Nevada border. Though I can't find it now, years ago I found a quote from Hettie's Rock Shop about Gary Green saying that, "wood, algae, other swamp vegetation and mud were covered by volcanic ash between 11 and 14 million years ago. Water carrying minerals seeped in creating the green color while it petrified. The colors are from a combination of iron, aluminum, potassium, sodium, and calcium."
To illustrate just how special this material is: in Agates III, a 656-page lavishly Illustrated volume, Zenz offers an 11-page "Beautiful and Remarkable" section between the introduction and Chapter 1 featuring one spectacular stone on each page. A fabulous Hans Gamma Gary Green appears on one of those pages. (The same stone is also in Gamma's own Picture Jaspers From the Northwest.)
