My place lies at the edge of the Fan, downhill from the Piedmont block, and the soil keeps producing these gorgeous pieces of lightly polished high-grade chert. I decided that this one should sit for a formal portrait. Click the image for a larger version.
It’s really more of a jasper than a chert. Jasper is a glassier, more refined chert that gets its appearance from the redistribution of silica fluids. This one mixes the red of oxidized iron with the green of reduced iron—at least that is my inexpert explanation—reflecting the invasion of oxidizing fluids at some point during its rough-and-tumble history as part of the Franciscan complex.
I believe that upstream, in Moraga Canyon, there were chert quarries in the earliest days, but I need to check the records to be sure one way or the other. This is not a quarried stone, though, because it has the burnished surface of an object that has been carried a short distance by streams and natural mass movements. I can’t look at it enough.
Oakland Geology 
16 July 2013 at 6:56 pm
Hdy – rock lover, I understand. My desk is filled with ones i just can’t let go. I take kids to American Soil and Stone just so they can pick out some of the beauties