We have the choice of taking the blue pill and just blindly dig or the red pill to learn how deep the rabbit hole goes. In this case the red pill is geology. To begin to understand the millions perhaps billions of years of geological processes that forge these treasures deep within the earth and how other geologic process eventually bring them to the surface is not only fascinating but crucial to becoming a better rockhound. By learning some geology you're able to better predict where certain minerals will be present by either looking at the visible terrain or using geologic maps. Another cool side effect of geology knowledge is that the amount of respect and admiration one has for minerals becomes incredibly elevated. To know that a piece of corundum was created via tectonic processes deep in the earth through crystallization of slowly cooling magma or metamorphism and finally brought to the surface by a mountain building event pushing deep layers of earth miles into the sky -- to know this history makes that little necklace or earring so much more because it is so much more.

I find the geology is much like a pirate map it gives you a good idea while you search for the treasure but... can you really trust who wrote the map they were trying to hide the treasure from everyone but themselves.  Geology seems to have a lot of best guess work to it...
Thats my take at least I like to know the why and how sometimes i read it before the rock hunting sometimes after trying to figure out what this other mineral we found is

Dmcmahan -- Agree on mapmakers hiding the treasure.  Example: The Virginia Department of Mines,  Minerals and Energy had great on-line interactive maps that easily pinpointed abandoned mine locations etc.  Then they "upgraded" the maps so that you can't zoom in as much, and it seems the mapped points are not complete.  Of course, the original version was only as accurate as the geologist's field notes, and I have heard from people with local knowledge of one site or another that the field notes at times are misleading.