Lake George Smokys and more

Since it is a rainy day today I thought I might catch up on my blog. I had a fairly nice find on 31Aug with crystal extraction and cleaning continuing til today. I was prospecting north of Lake George and found some quartz fragments with faces. Looking around for any recent digs, I did find one but it was below the float quartz I was finding. After a few shovel fulls of dirt, I started finding small but gemmy crystals. These smaller crystals also had albite and/or cleavelandite (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albite) around the bases of the crystals attached to the pegmatite. I also found some grainy fluorite pieces. Some of the crystals also had small phenakite (see http://www.reference.com/browse/phenakite+?s=b) Phenakite is Greek for deceiving. I guess it can be mistaken for quartz or topaz. As I dug down through reddish dirt the crystals become more frequent with considerable quartz shards. I finally hit some firm quartz about 4 feet down and followed this for a few feet til I hit some plates pictured below. While the plate came out in pieces it is still quite a find (at least for me). Since I found these plates on 31 Aug, the second full moon of the month (colloquially described as a blue moon) I will henceforth describe this find as my blue-moon pocket. Perhaps you only find something this nice once in a blue moon. Next blue moon won't occur til 2015. Hope I find more nice specimens before that ;-)

A sign of good things to come a very nice chubby crystal

Carefully scrapping dirt away reveals the beginning of a nice plate

Blue Moon plate washed and ready for reconstruction and further cleaning

Cleaned and stable, needs a little more TLC

Crystals reattached and cleaned.

Extracted these crystals for later reconstruction

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Crytals with albite or cleavelandite near bases

Phenakite on smoky

Smoky Quartz at Lake George

This year has been a poor one for collecting crystals at Lake George. The Waldo Canyon fire, Lake George fire and continuous temperatures in the 90s have made it difficult to prospect this summer. Persistence is a desired quality when rock hounding. The difficulty lies when persistence becomes stubborness. I believe I went through a period of stubborness in July. I thought there were crystals present in a certain area due to quartz float, but just couldn't find the source. I finally decided/reasoned that the source of the quartz was eroded away and I was able to move on after a month of looking for crystals in one area. Now that I've moved on, and temperatures have cooled a little, my prospecting is ranging further and I'm once again finding crystals. The other day I stumbled on 3 pockets of crystals in one day.  One pocket had amazonite and smokys, but the amazonite was very pale. The second pocket had small plates of quartz crystals which were very small. Finally in the 3rd pocket I hit paydirt. Though not the desirable smokys with amazonite, the smokys are sizable with good luster and sharp form.

Nice chubby smoky with side crystal attached

15+cm Nice luster, biggest smoky I've ever found

15cm of smoky bliss

Rock Hounding at an Estate Sale

I decided to attend an estate sale that promised thousands of rocks. The owner of many of these specimens an avid member of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society (CSMS), died doing what he loved best, collecting specimens on Pikes Peak. The auction started out somewhat slowly with clocks, furniture, knives and housewares, but eventually moved onto the rocks fossils and minerals. The amount of specimens up for auction was surprising. I recognized a few members from the CSMS and spirited bidding soon began. While I recognized some nice items, most others did as well. I was looking primarily for crystals, and was frequently outbid.  Finally I got a nice specimen of tourmaline and a rather large grouping of purple fluorite. The fluorite was somewhat dirty with calcite covering portions of it, but a quick trip to heated phosphoric acid bath took care of those two problems. I would guess that now that I've cleaned up the fluorite it has changed from a $4 specimen to at least $25 (see picture below). I've always loved geodes and like giving them away to kids. The price was right on these too. Imagine, spending the time to find, cut and polish and sell one of these beautiful geodes for $5 (I bought four). What a deal for me. Wasn't sure why some folks spent good money for river rocks and yard rocks, but to each his/her own I suppose.
After 8 hours my feet were sore and my interest was waning. I think my wife was looking for me as well. I would guess the auction went on for at least another hour or two. I got a few deals and was happy with my purchases. I decided to include this in my Rockhounding the Rockies blog, though it wasn't really rockhounding, unless you consider fishing in a trout pond fishing...;-)

Fluorite measures about 7 inches across, an overall beauty

One of four geodes I purchased, probably Mexico

Hanksite at the Rock Fair

This past weekend I went to a rock and mineral show in Buena Vista. I always keep my eye out for something different and this particular day a dealer had hanksite for sale at a very reasonable (cheap) price. Never having heard of hanksite, I let him tell me what it was. Evidently it is a rare due to its chemical composition and locale. The dealer said it is only found in California, specifically Searles Lake. Care must be taken with this mineral as it is an evaporate. Minerals such as these tend to slowly dissolve with time in moist environments.  The dealer advised keeping an eye on it and apply mineral oil if the specimen got any film on it. He also said you could spray it with a clear semigloss to keep out moisture.  He said I might not have much trouble in Colorado Springs due to the dry environment.

I did a little research and found it was named after Henry G Hanks the first CA state mineralogist. The minerals would be impossible to get except for the fact that a company that mines Borax brings up some of the hanksite from deep within the Searles lakebed.  Evidently the company allows folks to come to the site once a year and help themselves to mineral specimens. The occasion is called the Annual Gem-O-Rama.

I guess I could have gone to the Gem-O-Rama myself but it seemed easier for me to purchase a couple of specimens from the dealer who was not only knowledgeable and friendly, but also had reasonable prices.

I also purchased a piece of pink halite. Good with chips I think.

My Hanksite Specimen. (KNa22(SO4)9(CO3)2Cl

See:  http://www.squidoo.com/Mineral_Hanksite

http://www1.iwvisp.com/tronagemclub/

Pink Halite (NaCl)

Hackett Gulch Amazonite

Yesterday I went to Hackett Gulch, generally a dry arroyo that when wet feeds into the Platte R.  It was a fairly long trip on dirt roads, but the roads, though 4-wheel driveable were not too bad.  One large puddle had considerable mud at its bottom, but momentum got us through. Hackett Gulch is on the outskirts of the so-called Lake George Intrusive area, but still has several amazonite prospects.  I hadn't been in this area for two years and noted that one area appeared to have a new claim posted to it.  Posting was not clear and no central discovery point could be ascertained to this claim (not unusual for folks to not keep up their claims especially in remote areas like this one).  We also noted no recent digging.  For a claim to be valid it must be properly posted and if its a placer claim it needs to be worked a certain number of hours a year.  Folks often post claims and never take their stakes down. We didn't prospect the invalid claim area as there is more than enough untouched area up there to dig without causing a confrontation.  After 4 hours of prospecting I was about to give up when I noted a small pool of amazonite on the surface.  It was quite blue in appearance, I called over my digging buddy, but the spot only yielded a couple of collectible crystals.  This surface sign helped me discover a fairly large pegmatite just under the surface which may yield additional collectible crystals. On the way out of the area Bob also noted amazonite float on the surface down hill from the pegmatite.  We shall have to return soon to explore that area as well.

Amazonite from Hackett Gulch

Smoky Quartz from Bob&Ray Claim (different trip) Tesson habit

Mystery Crystal ? on smoky quartz and feldspar (not microcline) from Bear Creek

Lake George Rockhounding "The one that got away"

I have not posted to my rockhounding blog in some time due to studying for tests and a large fire here in Colorado Springs which some of you have no doubt heard of.  Many roads were closed, temperatures were near 100F and the smoke was unbearable. Yesterday I got out again and looked for smoky quartz near Lake George CO.  We had been to this spot before and dug out a fairly large pocket of smoky quartz crystals. We checked out an area down hill from this spot and found a lot of float crystals, but no pocket. At the end of the day we surmised that the float had been coming from the pocket of crystals we had already excavated. Still, many of the float crystals were keepers.  Normally I don't take broken crystals home, but I made an exception for the specimen pictured below.  It is about 7 inches long. With a proper termination it would have been at least 9+ inches and the biggest crystal I had ever found. It probably broke when the pocket that it formed in broke millions of years ago. :(

Little Pikes Peak and Elk Trail

Little Pikes Peak is near its bigger brother.  I suppose someone must have mistaken it for it's namesake at some point in time.  Today I hiked Elk trail to see if I could get to Pericle Rock.  I was going to check out Oil Creek Tunnel and the Cincinnati mine, but it got cold and windy and so I never made it, but did do some prospecting as I hiked along. Better to be safe and turn around then get caught in sleet or thunderstorm or both.  I got some nice pictures of Lil Pikes Peak.  I started at 9:30 and it was 55F at the trail-head. When I got back at 1:30 it was 42F... no sun and quite windy.  While I didn't find much, the area has some potential for smoky quartz and I'll probably revisit the area soon. Not sure why the road to the Pikes Peak doesn't open til 9AM, but the gatekeeper said the hours would be extended next week opening at 7:30.  Evidently the key-master sleeps til 9 or so. At 9 there were about 30 cars waiting for the road to open (including me).

Elk trail heading out towards Pikes Peak from the northeast

Little Pikes Peak

Quartz dribbling down the hill, a good sign for smoky quartz prospectors

Red dirt around a chunk of pegmatite. You can see some of the crystal definition

Good smoky fragment, close but no cigar... or smoky for that matter

Rumdoodle Ridge is between me and my quarry (Pikes Peak in background)