About ColoRockCo

John Schmalz started ColoRockCo, Ltd. on December 8th, 2022 after years of his family telling him to start a rock shop.

Really, it began after he got his B.S. in Biology (minor in Chemistry) and he had the horrible idea to collect the elements.
Living in Colorado, he was quite fortunate to be able to take advantage of amazing geology and collect many off the ground…
After he found many of what was known to be in Colorado, he began buying exotic rocks, and thought many of those, too, were also able to be found in Colorado.
Then bought more, and more, chasing theories…

Thousands of rocks later, and after having learned more than his friends and family would ever want to hear about, he realized he had more to share than he knew what to do with, realized Colorado has more to share with the world than the world knows, and realized Biology and Chemistry and most of everything we know about the world and life is based on our understanding of Geology.

Geology is still a new and growing body of knowledge. After all, the theory of plate tectonics is only ~60 years old…
The idea of plate tectonics seems pretty solid… But who knows! What will we learn in the next 60?
Uranium, and everything we know we can do with it, is a recent discovery still. There are some people living today who were born before we knew what it existed!
Thanks to it, and everything we’ve since learned, elements are still being discovered! Elements 103-118 were all discovered likely in your lifetime.

Who knows, maybe element 119 or 126 or 164 is in the rock you’ve stepped over in your yard a million times, just waiting to be discovered.
The potential uses and the ways it could change the world, just sitting there waiting for you to recognize it, to understand it…
to use it to build spaceships, or time machines, or power the world with the cleanest possible form of energy…

Even if you prefer reality to science fiction, we really need to find more elements in more places.
It’s a need that will be satisfied by somebody. Soon. We’re going to see a lot change in the next decade…
China can’t be held responsible for mining all the Neodymium we need for our F-35s.
Russia can’t be relied on to provide Palladium so everyone in the world can continue making catalytic converters…
Can Ukraine continue exporting Neon so ASML’s photolithography machines can be made for Taiwan’s silicon chips to be produced?
And, Lithium… Lithium is the next oil. If we’re to all be driving electric cars in the near future, we need a LOT more.
Same with Rare Earths, and so many other elements.

Rocks are cool and all, with pretty colors and a huge variety of properties, but we should all know our rocks.
With better knowledge, with more eyes, with more legs taking more people on more hikes, we’ll soon be making new discoveries.
We’re going to see more mines open in Colorado, in America, and in new locations all around the world.
Thanks to all we’re about to do and the rocks we’ll find, life is going to change tremendously in the next decade.

That’s pretty much why ColoRockCo exists.

We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants.
Now, go and see further!

If you’d like to know anything else about the Colorado Rock Company, please send us a message