Triassic Industries
sustainable wood & stone designs in the heart of Utah's red desert
Stone

We hand gather many of our rocks off the surface of the desert of southern Utah. We select each one out in the desert for strength, color, lines, feel, density, and beauty. We trade for others kinds of stones, it's also hard to resist some of the rock shops in our area-our favorite being The Rock Shop in Hanksville, Utah. We use a variety of tools, from hand rasps to sanders to large rock saws. We polish all stone by hand using consecutively finer grits of sand paper, down to 1500 grit. We finish all stones with organic vegetable oil. Every piece is unique and handcrafted. We tend to make more functional items, but love to make sculptures and other pieces of art. If you are interested in a rock carving kit, let us know...we would be happy to put something together for you. We also are willing to sell you some rough stone. Enjoy!
Alabaster-southern Utah
Plentiful throughout Utah, alabaster is the rock form of gypsum. It comes in many colors, from black to white, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and more. These colors come from the associated minerals either during or after the original deposition. Alabaster is a precipitate and evaporite, which probably started forming 300 million years ago. (A precipitate is most often formed when an insoluble substance is formed in the solution due to a reaction, or when the solution is supersaturated by a compound. An evaporite is water-soluble, and is the mineral sediments that remain after the evaporation of saline water. Evaporites start to precipitate when their concentration in water becomes too dense, to where they cannot exist as a solute . This usually happens from prolonged evaporation.)
red alabaster
black alabaster
white alabaster
Pipestone-northern North America
-Sioux account of the origin of the pipestone, as recorded by George Catlin, 1836.
“At an ancient time the Great Spirit, in the form of a large bird, stood upon the wall of rock and called all the tribes around him, and breaking out a piece of the red stone formed it into a pipe and smoked it, the smoke rolling over the whole multitude. He then told his red children that this red stone was their flesh, that they were made from it, that they must all smoke to him through it, that they must use it for nothing but pipes: and as it belonged alike to all tribes, the ground was sacred, and no weapons must be used or brought upon it.” –from http://www.nps.gov/pipe/

Pipestone is a soft red to black stone, which carves well. The stone is found in a formation called the Sioux Quartzite. Pipestone, clay deposits from 1.6 million years ago, were left by rivers that flowed over the Red River Valley floodplain. Often times Native Americans used this stone for ceremonial pipes. The pipestone and the site it comes from have great ceremonial value. Pipestone can only be mined by Native Americans and onl yhand tools are allowed.
red pipestone
Travertine-southern Utah
Laced agate is actually a cold water travertine deposit formed when an oil company hit an aquifer, thus creating a geyser. This led to the deposit of this calcium rich material. It is our youngest rock at less than 50 years old.
 .....travertine-swirls.
Richolite-southern New Mexico
This is a jewelry quality serpentine. Richolite can be any shade of green, sometimes with yellow splotches, and/or white bands. The source where our Richolite comes from is now a federally restricted area for big horn sheep. You are no longer allowed to hike in this canyon, let alone collect rocks. We have a friend who collected it for years, and we get it from him.
richolite richolite richolite
Other Types:
banded dolomite jade

...................Banded Dolomite
..................southern New Mexico
Jade
California
........Zebra Stone
.......southern utah