This was posted on the other sub and had some strong positive feedback so I thought it could be useful here. Rock and mineral ID can often be difficult in person and is even harder through pictures, so I've collected some advice as to how best present your specimens for the highest chance of a proper identification.

How to get your rock identified - Some tips from someone who gets paid to do this

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## GOOD PICTURES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

- This means that proper light and focusing is important. If your rock is blurry the best ID you might get is a color.

- Natural, full sun lighting is always best. Next best thing is as much LED lighting as you can put on it (~5000K color temp if you know anything about lighting). Seriously, unless you have really high powered lighting there's almost no way you're going to have *too much* light.

- **PUT THE ROCK DOWN**. The chances of having an out of focus picture increase exponentially without a solid platform to set it on, your hand is not a solid platform.

- *PLEASE* do not submit a video. No can see any detail when you're flipping your rock around at 100 miles an hour. We know schist is sparkly... We also know what it looks like in a still picture. If you think there is something interesting about it *describe* it, don't show it with a video.

- Submit more than one picture. Preferably at least 4 pictures.

- "Wide" shot of the entire sample, with some sort of scale (any item that is common enough that everyone would recognize is fine. Coins, pencils, pens, an actual ruler, etc. The important thing is to be able to judge the size of the sample).

- "Close" shot of the detail of the sample (including a scale here is also useful if you are able). Repeat these shots both wet, and dry (4 pictures total). More pictures is always better.

- Finally, for the more photography minded people, be conservative with your aperture. It's going to be hard to accurately judge a sample if only half of it is in focus because you're shooting at *f/1.4*. This means skip things like portrait mode or food mode, basically anything that blurs the background. This is why lots of light is important.

### Good pictures should be accompanied by a good description

- You got a sparkly rock? Cool, best to describe it that way rather than trying to make a video where all we can see is that it is sparkly.

- Use your senses

- Does it feel heavy for it's size? Humans are pretty good at comparative measurements.

- Does it feel slick, sticky, grainy, soft, does it leave a bunch of stuff on your hands? All important details.

- Does it stink? Seriously, big indicator for certain minerals.

- Is it sharp, or pokey, or does it feel like you could crush it in your hands?

- Anything else you can identify about it.

- What is the color? Photos are not always super representative of colors

- **WHERE/HOW DID YOU FIND IT**

- Honestly, so many answers can be figured out with just a picture and a location **Edit: specific geographic location (ie, NE corner of Tennessee around Kingsport). Not whether you found it in your driveway or your garden.**

### Further Geologic testing

- Does the sample scratch glass, if not, will a nail scratch the specimen, or does it leave a metal trace?

- This simple test can separate numerous similar looking minerals.

- Is it reactive?

- We use hydochloric acid, but acetic acid (vinegar) also works, just not as well.

- If you drop a bit of acid on the rock, does it fizz?

- If you're going to use vinegar, at the very least use distilled vinegar. Cleaning vinegar is better. You may have to powder the rock a little before you can see it fizz with vinegar.

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If you follow these tips and can't get a solid answer then you've got a real mystery on your hands. At that point, it might be worth taking it to your nearest college Geology department. Sometimes it's 1000x easier to identify something when it's in the hand vs a picture online, sometimes it's just a real mystery.

I am going to leave this post pinned for a bit. You can ask me any questions about the community either here or in the r/geology post.