|
Home |
|
About Us |
|
Ordering Information |
|
Links |
|
Product List |
|
Agate |
|
Amazonite |
|
Amethyst |
|
Calcite |
|
Chalcopyrite |
|
Creedite |
|
Emerald |
|
Fluorite |
|
Fossils |
|
Galena |
|
Hematite |
|
Kyanite |
|
Malachite |
|
Mica |
|
Microcline |
|
Orpiment |
|
Pseudomorphs |
|
Pyrite |
|
Quartz |
|
Ruby |
|
Rutilated Quartz |
|
Selenite |
|
Smoky Quartz |
|
Sphalerite |
|
Stibnite |
|
Tiger’s Eye |
|
THUMBNAILS |
|
Can You Help? |
|
Closeouts |
|
The 2009 Collecting Season |
|
ChucksRocks.com
ChucksRocks.com |
|
Small Amazonite / Smoky Quartz Pocket |
|
The Fluorite Pocket |
|
Some specimens from the Fluorite Pocket (uncleaned) |
|
Here’s a photo of me in the pit. You can see some small pegmatite lenses in the pit face. Unfortunately none of these particular lenses produced anything . . . |
|
This year I didn’t have much luck finding any good amazonite, but here’s one small pocket that I found. It contained some light colored amazonite with smoky quartz. Pretty nice, just not much of it. |
|
Closer view of the pocket —this focuses on the area where the hammer head is in the photo above. Once the loose material was gently brushed away, I could start to see that there were some good crystals but the iron and clay coatings were so thick I couldn’t tell if the crystals had any color. |
|
A little washing reveals some lightly colored amazonite |
|
Another pocket that I found. I called this the Fluorite Pocket because the first specimens that I pulled out had some nice fluorite on them (see photos below). As it turned out, this was really more of a smoky quartz pocket with nice microcline and hematite after siderite pseudomorphs. |
|
Same pocket. I found the pocket about 6 feet below the surface, but it dipped steeply and pretty soon I was nearly standing on my head tunneling down into the pit face. |
|
Photo inside the pocket. You can see parts of this pocket had collapsed. Loose smokies are visible here. |
|
Another photo inside the pocket. Here you can see some loose crystals and some on matrix. Parts of this pocket were intact while others were collapsed and broken. |
|
I had to regroup and move a lot of material to get back into the pocket. When I was in the process, I came across a completely collapsed pocket full of nice smoky quartz points. They were nearly all loose, randomly oriented, and packed in a sticky clay. Some of them were pretty nice and several showed nice character. |
|
Another photo of the loose quartz crystals packed in clay. They were difficult to extract without damaging them because of the way they were randomly stacked and because the clay was very tough. It was tedious but enjoyable—like a puzzle to be solved. |
|
This is after I got back into the Fluorite Pocket at a deeper level (about 10’ below the surface at this point). |
|
This photo is from within the lower section of the Fluorite Pocket. The photo doesn’t really do it justice. It was so exciting to reach into the open vug and feel the crystals before I could see them. |
|
Nice specimen of smoky quartz and microcline on matrix. The heavy clay and iron coating on the specimen is typical for this area. Note that a large smoky crystal is broken off near the base (near the center of the photo). The heavy iron coating on the broken surface shows that the crystal was broken when the pocket collapsed (not due to collecting activities) |
|
This is one of the first nice specimens that I pulled out of the pocket. The cubic crystals are fluorites—thus the name for the pocket. The large rhomb crystal in the center is hematite after siderite pseudomorph. |
|
A nice specimen covered with smoky quartz, microcline, albite, and specular hematite. Of course I couldn’t really tell what all I had until it had been cleaned. |
|
Many specimens came out of the pocket looking like this—very difficult to tell what’s in there . . . Only cleaning will tell. |
|
This is one of my favorite specimens from the pocket. There’s a large cluster of hematite after siderite pseudomorphs and some nice smokies. After this was cleaned up, it was very nice. The hematite was shiny and metallic and nicely contrasted with the microcline and black smoky quartz. This specimen came out heavily iron stained but not coated with clay. |
|
Twinned microcline crystals were visible in this specimen even before it was cleaned. Note the various oxides coating the crystals. . |