Iron Hill at Lake George CO

Iron iron everywhere, pseudomorphs, goethite, onegite and amorphous blobs of iron on crystals.  We’ve prospected a hill from time to time with little in the way of quality crystals.  I have a fondness for the odd stuff so I went back to the iron hill and Bob worked a separate spine on the same hill.  I would say Bob had a better find than mine, but I certainly had some fun as well!  I set down to dig and Bob did likewise within 100 yards of each other.  I looked at some of our previous digs on the hill which seemed to follow a pegmatite. We had given up a little on this area because the only thing we’ve found has been primarily goethite, microcline and poorly formed smoky quartz crystals.  I decided to dig up the hill between two of our previous digs, along what I perceived to be a pegmatite running under the ground and try my luck.  I looked for crystals shards or smoky quartz pieces on the surface and was rewarded with a float onegite (quartz infused with goethite).  Finding onegite was not surprising considering the amount of iron and quartz on the hill, but to find a large example with good terminations floating on the surface was an unexpected bonus.  

Smoky with onegite sidecars

I decided that was as good a spot as any to dig and soon hit gray quartz bubbling out of the pegmatite. I dug out the quartz and only found a couple small smokies, but as I went below the quartz I ran into some pseudomorphs.  We’ll call these pseudomorphs goethite after carbonates (possibly calcite or siderite or something else entirely). I usually pitch these down the hill, but I saved them this time as they were fairly well-formed and some geologist somewhere might want themJ.

 4" pseudomorph... lot of brown here

I also found teensy little amazonite crystals with good color, but hardly collectible. This small pocket ended abruptly but I decided to continue on up the hill hoping for something better.  I heard something up the hill and wondered now what?  Bob usually calls me on the radio when he finds something but I guess this time he wanted to surprise me.  Bob had found a fairly large amazonite pocket with a few nice amazonite groupings.  The intact groupings were very nice and the color seemed good.  Bob invited me over to take a look at his dig and help a bit.  I was bored with my small, meager pocket and followed him over to his dig.  I spent perhaps half an hour with Bob pulling out amazonite crystals. Some of the crystals were better than others both form and color-wise.  The intact amazonite in the plates seemed the best.  As Bob was digging he also pulled out some fairly delicate goethite sprays.  We both have a lot of these sprays but not many that are as fragile as what he was finding.  Bob generously gave me a nice one.  After helping Bob clean out the pocket, I decided I better get back to work as I had a tree to move if I were going to continue my diggings up the hill.  I decided to first scrape out the scree under the fallen tree as I was finding a few smoky shards, before moving the tree.  Out popped a rather tremendous smoky quartz plate floater.  The plate has 4 different crystals with the largest being about 5 inches. 

 I also noted some amorphous iron blobs coating areas on the plate. One entire crystal is entirely coated by iron.  I guess that’s one way to protect float crystals as they journey down the hill. After digging under the tree I moved it and found more float crystals along some rock to my right.  I believe the tree and rocks acted as a catch basin for these crystals.  If the pocket still exists up the hill it could be quite interesting. I went back to where Bob was digging and showed off my smoky plate and he decided he would check out my site.  We dug together for about an hour and found a few more float crystals but nothing as nice as the plate under the fallen tree, there was another iron coated smoky, some double terminated crystals as well as a few multi-terminated small crystals.  I’m sure there are more goodies on that hill and hopefully a pocket still in front of me.  It was nearing 3PM and we had a bit of a walk back to the truck so Bob went back to his amazonite dig and loaded up, while I packed my crystals and leveled off my dig. I shall return!

Day 2: I did return and found some nice specimens, but not anything like the large iron globbed on quartz crystals of the day before.  I had found my specimens on day 1 near the end of the day and had dug rather rapidly across the pegmatite, getting what I could before the end of the day. Day 2 I retraced my digging a bit and dug down into the peg.  There were a few soft spots in the quartzy peg and I was rewarded with crystals of smokys and some amazonite. The smokys were on the small side most being less than 2" and the amazonite were also small and of only average color.  Still when found together the amazonite/smoky combos can make for a nice display. I've picture a few of these day 2 finds below, hand washed for your viewing pleasure.

Some of Day 2 finds... hand washed a bit and ready for more aggressive cleaning

Cleaned up a bit, this pocket has numerous smoky phantoms with some amazonite combos!

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