Wyoming Anorthite, Labradorite and Magnetite trip
Jun 30, 2014 10:28:00 GMT -5
bsky4463 and snowmom like this
Post by herchenx on Jun 30, 2014 10:28:00 GMT -5
Last week the Cheyenne Mineral & Gem Society sent out an invite to the Fort Collins Rockhounds and I let rockroller and another friend know.
Roland (rockroller) met me at my house at 7:30 and we headed up to Wyoming. My oldest daughter and youngest son came along.
We met the group along I25 North of Cheyenne and caravan'd to the spot between Wheatland, Cheyenne and Laramie.
The view on the way in was great, all the spring rain has made Colorado and Wyoming unusually green.
We pulled off along a roadcut through a large hill of solid rock, covered in sparkly crystalline minerals. Everyone caught up to us and we got a look at what the Anorthosite and Anorthite looked like. The entire hill was solid Anorthosite. This area (the Sybille Canyon) is known to allegedly have labradorite, although we never saw any of interest.
Apparently there are several more road cuts further up, one of which is nearly solid Kyanite. I would like to have seen this one, but we headed a different direction. The group leader took us back to a gate into some private land that had an old magnetite mine.
We all got out of the car and got another bit of an overview of the area, where the mine was and where we would start looking at the tailings pile.
Matthew, Emma and I headed toward the tailings pile with the trip leader. Matthew had a tough time keeping his feet on the ground for the very gusty wind we had to deal with all day.
The group wandered over the hill to the tailings pile
This was the only piece of material I found all day with any labradorescence. If you look very closely about 1/4" above my thumb you can see a very small, faint blue flash. I tossed this piece thinking I might find something better, which I never did.
After about 30-45 minutes of looking at the lower area, we collected our posse and drove up an old 4wd road to the open pit mine. The view up here was fantastic. You can see Roland near the left edge of the panorama
This was the old mine, where they mined magnetite for the iron. I don't know how long it has been inactive, it sounded like a long time.
Emma getting back in the truck before we left.
We doubled back a bit and headed down a dirt road that "the old timers say has labradorite" and started looking for road cuts. For several miles you would see only small rock outcroppings (no roadcuts) so we stopped at one and explored a bit. I bumped the saturation and exposure to try and reveal the purple vein I found in one area
I don't know if it is amethyst, fluorite, or something else. It had a very fine crystalline druzy on it and was a pretty color.
Roland and Matthew looking for specimens
We collected some small specimens and headed back out.
There were a lot of wildflowers!
This was an Indian Paintbrush with an example of the magnetite in situ
As happend very often I was walking along and nearly stepped on a bird. In this case a Kestrel was sitting on its "nest" and remained perfectly still until it was almost crushed under a foot, and then gave me a heart attack as it screamed and flushed right in front of me.
Our last roadcut stop before looping back through Laramie
While driving through Laramie, we stopped back by Green Gold Jade and saw Vivian Tracy again. My kids enjoyed playing with her cats. I hate cats but these 2 are very friendly and fun to see play with shoelaces and cuddle with the kids. I got my son some magnets so he could test his magnetite (it passed) - Emma got an obsidian ring, and I picked up a new fossil, a Mioplosus from the Laggerstatten, the Green River Formation in Wyoming. This specimen is about 9" long. I couldn't have beaten the price.
It was good to see another couple pop in while we were there as well - we'd met them rockhounding earlier in the day and they stopped into the shop as well.
This was a specimen I was told was Anorthite, however wikipedia claims Anorthite is white so I am still unclear:
Here are a couple yard rocks I brought home, magnetite and anorthosite. It is hard to see because of the bright sun, but the magnetite has a very glossy, jet black finish and the anorthosite has a pretty, subtle variegated appearance.
One of the pieces of magnetite had a whole bunch of olivine included into the rock, my specimen isn't very pretty - lacking the color that would make it really look great. Another hound found an eye-popper, where the olivine was bright green. I'm happy with mine though:
We arrived back home around 5:30 PM, in time for dinner, we put about 300 miles on the truck and had a great time.
Roland (rockroller) met me at my house at 7:30 and we headed up to Wyoming. My oldest daughter and youngest son came along.
We met the group along I25 North of Cheyenne and caravan'd to the spot between Wheatland, Cheyenne and Laramie.
The view on the way in was great, all the spring rain has made Colorado and Wyoming unusually green.
We pulled off along a roadcut through a large hill of solid rock, covered in sparkly crystalline minerals. Everyone caught up to us and we got a look at what the Anorthosite and Anorthite looked like. The entire hill was solid Anorthosite. This area (the Sybille Canyon) is known to allegedly have labradorite, although we never saw any of interest.
Apparently there are several more road cuts further up, one of which is nearly solid Kyanite. I would like to have seen this one, but we headed a different direction. The group leader took us back to a gate into some private land that had an old magnetite mine.
We all got out of the car and got another bit of an overview of the area, where the mine was and where we would start looking at the tailings pile.
Matthew, Emma and I headed toward the tailings pile with the trip leader. Matthew had a tough time keeping his feet on the ground for the very gusty wind we had to deal with all day.
The group wandered over the hill to the tailings pile
This was the only piece of material I found all day with any labradorescence. If you look very closely about 1/4" above my thumb you can see a very small, faint blue flash. I tossed this piece thinking I might find something better, which I never did.
After about 30-45 minutes of looking at the lower area, we collected our posse and drove up an old 4wd road to the open pit mine. The view up here was fantastic. You can see Roland near the left edge of the panorama
This was the old mine, where they mined magnetite for the iron. I don't know how long it has been inactive, it sounded like a long time.
Emma getting back in the truck before we left.
We doubled back a bit and headed down a dirt road that "the old timers say has labradorite" and started looking for road cuts. For several miles you would see only small rock outcroppings (no roadcuts) so we stopped at one and explored a bit. I bumped the saturation and exposure to try and reveal the purple vein I found in one area
I don't know if it is amethyst, fluorite, or something else. It had a very fine crystalline druzy on it and was a pretty color.
Roland and Matthew looking for specimens
We collected some small specimens and headed back out.
There were a lot of wildflowers!
This was an Indian Paintbrush with an example of the magnetite in situ
As happend very often I was walking along and nearly stepped on a bird. In this case a Kestrel was sitting on its "nest" and remained perfectly still until it was almost crushed under a foot, and then gave me a heart attack as it screamed and flushed right in front of me.
Our last roadcut stop before looping back through Laramie
While driving through Laramie, we stopped back by Green Gold Jade and saw Vivian Tracy again. My kids enjoyed playing with her cats. I hate cats but these 2 are very friendly and fun to see play with shoelaces and cuddle with the kids. I got my son some magnets so he could test his magnetite (it passed) - Emma got an obsidian ring, and I picked up a new fossil, a Mioplosus from the Laggerstatten, the Green River Formation in Wyoming. This specimen is about 9" long. I couldn't have beaten the price.
It was good to see another couple pop in while we were there as well - we'd met them rockhounding earlier in the day and they stopped into the shop as well.
This was a specimen I was told was Anorthite, however wikipedia claims Anorthite is white so I am still unclear:
Here are a couple yard rocks I brought home, magnetite and anorthosite. It is hard to see because of the bright sun, but the magnetite has a very glossy, jet black finish and the anorthosite has a pretty, subtle variegated appearance.
One of the pieces of magnetite had a whole bunch of olivine included into the rock, my specimen isn't very pretty - lacking the color that would make it really look great. Another hound found an eye-popper, where the olivine was bright green. I'm happy with mine though:
We arrived back home around 5:30 PM, in time for dinner, we put about 300 miles on the truck and had a great time.