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| Amazonite from a December Pocket--Wait til this cleans up! |
We go rock hounding this time of year as the weather
permits. Normally Bob and I shut down our
prospecting by mid-November but Mother Nature has given us a couple extra
weeks this year. While the shady areas are pretty much locked up with frost the
south and west facing slopes can still be prospected fairly late this
year. On the drive in Bob mentioned it
sure would be nice to find a December pocket--sure would. One area we’ve
skirted on our claim while prospecting is an area where just about the entire hillside
seems to have been dug long ago. One old-timer told us a few years ago about digging where others have already dug "do you think anyone would leave anything there for you?" We can respond that NOBODY EVER GETS IT ALL! (I think the old-timer was trying to dissuade us from digging in an area he wanted to dig). Bob decided to redig an area he thought merited some inspection because NOBODY EVER GETS IT ALL. On closer examination he found a slight seam of
blue running near the surface. This
streak of blue color (amazonite) ran into the ground and towards a previously
dug area. I’ve probably discounted digging too much in areas well dug as I assumed the old
timers probably did get most of the crystals in those areas. Bob was determined to find some
amazonite and so he thought he would follow this seam hoping it might pocket
out before it ran into the older dig.
Now you might surmise this would not be much of a post to my blog if the
seam dead ended into the old dig before a pocket appeared and you would be
right! As the seam began to produce a
few small amazonite crystals Bob gave me a call on our radios and I decided to
check out his blossoming find.
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| Lots of nice amazonite piling up in the background! |
I sat
down next to the dig and examined his finds of amazonite and smoky quartz shards. The amazonite was of very good color and well-formed
but most of the smoky quartz crystals were just shards. As I sat and watched Bob dig he carefully
continued digging on the hill at about a 20 degree slope down. Bob kept pulling out nice amazonite and
occasional smoky quartz crystals. Then
just as a little mud in the seam became a little more prevalent a pocket within
the pegmatite opened up and bam out of the ground came some fairly big shards
of smoky quartz and couple of solid 6 inchers.
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| Good Termination Needs Cleaning |
Both smoky crystals and amazonite were well terminated
and appeared fairly complete. Smokys and amazonite crystals continued
to pop out from the side walls of the dig.
The previous digger’s excavation was only about 10 feet up the hill
right in front of us but the evidence shows NOBODY EVER GETS IT ALL! We both kept our fingers crossed hoping for
some smoky/amazonite combination plates.
As the pocket opened up we saw some fairly large pegmatite chunks with
crystal definition on them showing through the compacted pocket mud. Bob started carefully pulling out these amazonite
plates one after the next. While the
plates were no bigger than palm-size, the crystals were well-formed,
lustrous and nearly pristine. So while
there were no plates of smoky quartz/amazonite combinations the plates of
amazonite Bob did pull out were very collectible. I stayed out of Bob’s way for the most part
and examined some of the specimens he pulled out. My seemingly weekly headache had returned and
bending over into Bob’s crystal pocket was not comfortable.
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| My plate :-) Nice pile of crystals in the background as well! |
Finally Bob suggested I get in and check out
his crystal pocket. I couldn’t resist and of course I pulled out one of the nicest
plates of crystals pictured here. The
plate even had some smoky quartz on it. I handed these specimens over to Bob
who assured me I would get something nice from the pocket. I only lasted a
couple minutes in the pocket as my headache was just too much to
tolerate and probably didn't deserve anything. When Bob realized I was too
sick to dig he finished digging, buried the remains of the pocket, bundled up
his crystal booty and we drove home. It was a good day and despite what one old-timer told us, we know NOBODY EVER GETS IT ALL! We
may not be able to return to Lake George until next spring as the weather forecast calls for low
temperatures in the single digits which will freeze over the
creek crossings and push frost down a couple feet into the ground. Next bit of prospecting will probably be at
garage and estate sales ;-) Til 2018? and yes I saved the best picture for last!
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| One of the better plates we found this day (90% cleaned)... I dug this one out during the 2 minutes I was digging in the pocket material. As you can see I must have had quite a bad headache to relinquish this kind of digging fun back to Bob. |
