I wish I had some geologist friends.

I worked in the mining industry for awhile, and we'd just ask the geo to lick the rock to identify it.

Speaking of this, my wife has a dark gray rock about the size of a silver dollar she found many years ago in our front yard, within a mile of the shore of Puget Sound. It's broken, with a reflective crystalline-looking structure inside, and a magnet attracts it. Anybody know how likely it is to be meteoric iron?

At the small college I attended, Geology 101 was known as "Rocks for Jocks" because it was the class jocks took to satisfy their science requirement. In one hallway was a big display board with a bunch of labeled rock samples on it. If you memorized all of them well enough to identify them on the final, you were almost guaranteed to pass. So there were always football jocks standing there studying that board.

They did not lick it. I don't trust that expertise

The book “Assembling California” by McPhee gives a lot of excellent description about context when it comes to geology. Gets a bit academic at times, but interesting background on California’s crazy geology.

I usually just say something like "look over there!" and sneakily replace the rock they were tasting to the one I want identified

Jesus Christ, Marie. It's a mineral!

Can confirm that the method on the right yeilds better results for anyone who asks me.

This can work. But: "Look at this hand sample I found at a prospective mineral mining source. What sort of resources might we find here? I have included a hefty research grant."

Yo let me get a dime bag of that geology.

Better method:

Walk up to geologist, hand them a rock

"Look at this cool agate I found!"

Where "agate" is substituted for any obviously incorrect identification.

Scientists are people, too. Give them the McDonald’s money and they’ll do all sorts of cool things for you.