I recently returned from a one week trip to Arizona, a state that is truly a “gold mine” of exquisite rocks, crystals and petrified fossils.

We based ourselves in Sedona, one of America’s best kept secrets until the 1950’s, when it became the home to many Hollywood westerns. Sedona is built on a bed of redwall limestone, which was deposited there 330 million years ago. One of the layers of geological formation dates back 255 million years ago, and it includes a wealth of incredible fossils that provide great potential for jewelry making.

Just 20 miles from Sedona we visited the town of Jerome, a historic copper mining town that was once the fourth largest city in the Arizona territory with a population of over 15,000 people. Jerome has now become America’s largest ghost town with a population of 450. Despite its size, today Jerome is a thriving artist community and a wonderful place to discover some of the fossils and gems buried in its mountains millions of years ago.

I returned from Arizona with some hand picked orthoceras fossils (over 400 million years old), Septarian geodes and a variety of crystals and unique stones that I am now incorporating into some new pieces of jewelry in time for the Christmas season.