Crystal digging time has been limited this summer, however I was able to make it out several times this fall having several successful days! This day in late September I was able to find a fun smokey quartz and light amazonite pocket. There was an antler my dog found that he enjoyed all day long; the cool part is where he found it! Investigating the area he led me to showed some promising signs on the surface. I dug a few test holes and eventually found a crystal pocket! I feel it thus is appropriate that I named the pocket after him (his name is Boogie)!
Boogie chawing on a an antler near my test hole, which ended up in a couple small pockets
At the point of the antler, there was a few quartz and feldspar chunks laying on the ground. Digging a test hole there, I found a couple of pieces of float pegmatite within the first 5 inches so I followed the float peg up the hill. Its always a good sign when you can follow a path of float rocks up a hill, especially if there are euhedral sides, which in this case there were not any flats. A short while (maybe 5 feet) later uphill the peg stopped showing up at the float level. Often this sudden stoppage of float material means that whatever was producing the float is back downhill.
Going back down the hill a few feet, I dug deeper and found more peg! Following that led me to the host peg which started maybe 8 inches below the surface. It looks like I found the source!!! Now, hopefully the peg chunks will start having flat faces and become more crystallized ending in a seam or a pocket!
In this hole, digging down, I was able to hit the bottom of the peg seam where it turned into crumbles of granite gravel. Going up hill I ended back into gravel, so I feel I found the girth of this pegmatite seam. That said, nothing interesting was presenting itself, yet…
Next, I followed the peg from side-to-side. Within about 30 minutes I found a few nice terminated quartz crystals and a few smaller pieces. This is documented in the first few minutes in the video, below. The quartz ended as soon as it started, however, and I ended up on a fruitless dig in that direction for about an hour longer…that is typical of me, when I find crystals I go in that direction for an extra long time just to be sure; someday I’ll figure out when to stop earlier…or not.
Next step was to take a break and eat lunch. After looking at what I had dug and the size of the pegmatite from different perspectives I figured there was only one choice, to stay on this peg which had produced quartz crystals and dig the other way. Soon after digging that way I was pulling out some quartz and microcline with sides, and finally some microcline crystals. This is where the video continues.
The pocket contained a lot of chunks of microcline/light blue amazonite but none were fully euhedral, until the very end which contains a big 5″ crystal in three pieces. Many of the crystals were good size and had many faces. All were heavily coated in iron oxide. I did find some quartz too, especially in the center and lower parts of the pocket. The quartz had interesting staining, all having a secondary coating of grey/white quartz on their tips, and then on 3 of the faces horizontal lines of the same secondary coating while on the other three faces heavily iron oxide stained. They all had similar coatings and stain patterns which I found interesting!
The find of the day was a smokey quartz and cleavelandite combo, a 4-5 inch smokey quartz with excellent patterns in the secondary coatings and staining, and a 5″ wide light amazonite crystal at the bottom of the pocket.
Cleavelandite and Smokey Quartz combo with mica sprinkled around it. The quartz has a secondary coating of quartz.
Almost all the quartz had a secondary coating of milky quartz on top and the amazonites and microclines were heavily coated with iron oxide. There was a very large 5″ amazonite at the bottom of the pocket which was in three pieces, but they fit back together nicely. All have been in the cleaning bath for a while and have yet to clean up to my liking, except a few in which the staining adds to the color and character! I’m working on abrasive methods and hopefully will have cleaner pictures to show soon.
Large amazonite (light blue) found at the bottom of the pocket in 3 pieces. Undergoing a lengthy super iron out bath.
Light amazonite with mica still heavily stained after many weeks in a SIO bath. From the video.
Cool pair of smokey quartz showing the parallel growth and quartz caps
A couple of the smokey quartz showing the overgrowth of quartz on the points.
Largest smokey quartz from the pocket. I’m done cleaning it as I really like the lines and their parallelism to the crystal faces. This is shown in the video.
