Some people will tell you that the only "true" flint comes from the Cretaceous chalk beds of southern England and northern France and Denmark, but this is like saying that unless a diamond has come from South Africa, it can't really be called a diamond, and you have to call it crystalline carbon. In other words, nonsense.
I've got a ton or so of nice flint in my garage, including some exceptional flint from the cretaceous Stooping River Formation of the James Bay Lowlands, some Georgetown Flint from cretaceous deposits in Texas, and which is indistinguishable from English flint, and some gorgeous root-beer coloured flint from the cretaceous Knife River Formation of North Dakota. And that's just the cretaceous stuff.
Flint and chert(the terms are pretty much interchangeable) are both sedimentary deposits of silica, with varying amounts of impurities in it., which accounts for the variability between what is found in different locations, and even within the same location. It can form as nodules, or in beds. It can be opaque, or it can be translucent, or any combination thereof, and in just about any colour. It varies between fine and glassy to grainy, and a fist sized piece can vary from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I've been playing with this stuff for a long time
some of these are made from British flint, some from Texas flint. Can you tell the difference?
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