Post by Jason on Apr 10, 2011 0:57:46 GMT -5
Went back to the ole quartz spot a mile from my house(I dub thee.."The amguy quartz spot"). They are starting to put in houses and have placed 4 over the area where i used to find my best stuff but all is not lost.....what makes this place awesome is we are only 35 miles from Atlanta in the second most populous county in the state of Georgia. There is like 900,000 people within 20 miles of me so not to many cleared atreas around. I just happened to stop by one day and scratch around...
I found the multiple primary deposits that all the crystals I would find came from. I had always surface collected and never found the primary deposit. The two quartz outcrops seen in the pics on the hillside turned out to be them. i had looked there before but only found massive quartz. I guess 2 years of weathering uncovered the crystals i was seeking in that hillside deposit. Found lots of giant ones this time and some small gem grade ones. I got buckets full but only took photos of certain ones. (this was over a month ago). Make sure and watch the videos....
You can see the outcrops on the hill
This is a giant crystal
This is a giant one with a clear point(uncleaned)
This one is perfectly formed
These are from about 1 month ago
Most of the giant ones are like diamond hill skeletal crystals without the orange/yellow coating.
This was one of the nicer cluster I found size wise
This is a nicer gemmy cluster but smaller(unclean). I got maybe 5-6 of these with tons more there
This is probably the nicest well formed crystal I found with perfect euhedral faces
Here is a large one
Here is different large one
Top view of same large one
Another large one with 2 main crystals. The right crystal has part of the top sheared off
Another large one
Different view
Some of the gemmy ones..got a small tupperware full of these
Here is the ones in the picture on a metal shelf for size comparison
Here are some cleaned up..I sure wish they had that nice even orangish color like the DH crystals have. The clay is that thick tan material. Classic pocket or vein clay and it's thick.
Here is some pics of the vein
There are two primary veins to choose from..one produces giant crystals and the other better formed crystal in larger clsuters.
Okay..you can see the small slot on the right and the small slot on the left...the center raised area is the actual quartz vein. Where the shovel head is laying. This is the portion of the vein thats on the flat/level area.
You can see how white the clay is on one side of the vein. It's probably decomposed feldspar.
A small cluster I pulled out.
A better view of the vein
A little pocket in the vein
Here is a nice little skeletal quartz crystal I pulled direct from the vein. Black coating is manganese.
Here is a video of the lower flat area portion of the vein
Okay now here is the vein as it travels up the hillside. I decided to try my luck here to see if the morphology of the vein was different or produced a different quality of crystal.
Here you can see my digging next to the vein. Normally I would cut up both sides to help remove the quartz easier but the portion to the right is already broken up so easy to remove without having to trench up both sides.
Looking down at the vein from the hillside. The tool handle is laying on the actual vein
A crystal about ready to fall out of the vein
The crystal
Knife pointing to a crystal in the vein
My 2 right fingers are pointing in the direction the crystal are pointing in the vein and showing the same thing in the next pic as well but for the other side of the vein
Here you can see me working my way up the vein. The left trench is the contact zone between the vein the the country rock(dirt). The right trench is me cutting up the massive quartz portion of the vein. The vein is much larger than this but the quartz crystal are only forming on the left side of the vein and their is no sense in digging more than I have to.
You can see the vein travels up the hillside another 20 feet
These are just a couple I pulled out from this trip. I got maybe 200+ crystals and clusters
Nice skeletal crystal with cool jet black manganese coating
Took this photo this evening so the quality is not good.. I collected all of these today on the shelf out back. I still have 3 buckets left, one large pile next to the house and one bucket in the garage to clean. Got lots of them.
This is a good video i took of me pulling crystals out of the vein today.
I found the multiple primary deposits that all the crystals I would find came from. I had always surface collected and never found the primary deposit. The two quartz outcrops seen in the pics on the hillside turned out to be them. i had looked there before but only found massive quartz. I guess 2 years of weathering uncovered the crystals i was seeking in that hillside deposit. Found lots of giant ones this time and some small gem grade ones. I got buckets full but only took photos of certain ones. (this was over a month ago). Make sure and watch the videos....
You can see the outcrops on the hill
This is a giant crystal
This is a giant one with a clear point(uncleaned)
This one is perfectly formed
These are from about 1 month ago
Most of the giant ones are like diamond hill skeletal crystals without the orange/yellow coating.
This was one of the nicer cluster I found size wise
This is a nicer gemmy cluster but smaller(unclean). I got maybe 5-6 of these with tons more there
This is probably the nicest well formed crystal I found with perfect euhedral faces
Here is a large one
Here is different large one
Top view of same large one
Another large one with 2 main crystals. The right crystal has part of the top sheared off
Another large one
Different view
Some of the gemmy ones..got a small tupperware full of these
Here is the ones in the picture on a metal shelf for size comparison
Here are some cleaned up..I sure wish they had that nice even orangish color like the DH crystals have. The clay is that thick tan material. Classic pocket or vein clay and it's thick.
Here is some pics of the vein
There are two primary veins to choose from..one produces giant crystals and the other better formed crystal in larger clsuters.
Okay..you can see the small slot on the right and the small slot on the left...the center raised area is the actual quartz vein. Where the shovel head is laying. This is the portion of the vein thats on the flat/level area.
You can see how white the clay is on one side of the vein. It's probably decomposed feldspar.
A small cluster I pulled out.
A better view of the vein
A little pocket in the vein
Here is a nice little skeletal quartz crystal I pulled direct from the vein. Black coating is manganese.
Here is a video of the lower flat area portion of the vein
Okay now here is the vein as it travels up the hillside. I decided to try my luck here to see if the morphology of the vein was different or produced a different quality of crystal.
Here you can see my digging next to the vein. Normally I would cut up both sides to help remove the quartz easier but the portion to the right is already broken up so easy to remove without having to trench up both sides.
Looking down at the vein from the hillside. The tool handle is laying on the actual vein
A crystal about ready to fall out of the vein
The crystal
Knife pointing to a crystal in the vein
My 2 right fingers are pointing in the direction the crystal are pointing in the vein and showing the same thing in the next pic as well but for the other side of the vein
Here you can see me working my way up the vein. The left trench is the contact zone between the vein the the country rock(dirt). The right trench is me cutting up the massive quartz portion of the vein. The vein is much larger than this but the quartz crystal are only forming on the left side of the vein and their is no sense in digging more than I have to.
You can see the vein travels up the hillside another 20 feet
These are just a couple I pulled out from this trip. I got maybe 200+ crystals and clusters
Nice skeletal crystal with cool jet black manganese coating
Took this photo this evening so the quality is not good.. I collected all of these today on the shelf out back. I still have 3 buckets left, one large pile next to the house and one bucket in the garage to clean. Got lots of them.
This is a good video i took of me pulling crystals out of the vein today.