2020 was a very odd year for many of us, rock hounds included. As the snow melted and ground began to thaw in March, we were given a COVID stay at home order from the governor. We were not to leave the house for anything except essential activities like jobs and up to 10 miles for exercise. I live about 50 miles from L George so the season got off to a very late start. Sometime late April we got a change to safer at home mandate. We decided we could set off for L George, but then a late season snow robbed us of another week of rock hounding. Finally by mid May, with restrictions relaxed, the weather cooperated and off we went. This post will include highlights of some of my better digs for 2020. I think I found about a dozen pockets this year, with two being exceptional. My digging partner Bob also had a good year and found many nice specimens. We both ran into the mid summer doldrums as far as rocking hounding season went. Weather was hot, dusty and dry and nice specimens became few and far between. You can read more detail about my finds in other posts on this blog if you wish.
In the fall of 2019 I found a very nice seam of amazonite which i hoped would pocket out. An early fall snow in 2019 prevented me from exploring this promising spot. This would be my first target for 2020. I spent 6 months waiting to get out there again. Finally, on my first day out I returned to my previous spot and found a pocket of amazonite. There was some smoky quartz and fluorite in this pocket as well. The pocket was probably a little larger than a basketball and only about 2 feet deep into the ground.
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| Measures 4x4cm combo of fluorite and quartz on amazonite with a few small specks of columbite |
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| Fairly large amazonite measures 8x8cm |
The amazonite depicted here was the prize of the pocket as far as I was concerned. I didn't know it had fluorite on it until i got it home and washed it. While the color is only average for amazonite, the added fluorite and small crystals of columbite really make this a unique piece. The other amazonite was a little bit better color and the largest of the pocket measuring about 8x8 cm. The other amazonite also has a number of small quartz crystals clinging to the faces of the amazonite crystal. The third fine specimen of this pocket is a light purple fluorite specimen with an attached amazonite crystal. This fluorite was near the top of the pocket. I had just started to take extra care extracting overburden from the pocket when this beauty popped up. It is a close contender for best specimen of the pocket after the aforementioned combo. I rarely see fluorites this large, with fine, crisp, sharp edges. All 3 of these specimens are now in my collection. Bob always says there is at least one good keeper in every pocket, well this pocket had a few nice ones. There were also several twinned manebach crystals here too, but most were broken along the common plane. Pictured below is the purple fluorite, about 9 cm across. The back of the piece has contact.
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| Maybe the best fluorite I've ever found at L George 9x6 cm |
Once the specimens were extracted from the pocket the pegmatite quickly disappeared into common granite. I spent a few more hours prospecting the area, but that appeared to be it.
The next major find was more of an area with several small pockets. No pocket was bigger than a softball. The smoky quartz crystals were exceptionally clear and gemmy. There was also some amazonite present which while of better color than the previous find, was all very small. Bob got the real prize from this area with a few exceptional smoky quartz/amazonite combos. Below is pictured one of the larger quartz crystals I pulled from this decayed pegmatite area.
As you can see the dig is fairly shallow, maybe a foot in depth. There were lots of crumbly pegmatite seams with small pockets scattered about. Anytime you find crystals is a good time. While these smokys were small, there were very gemmy and clean. Great for give-aways to kids, trade, or sell at rock shows.
While digging the small decayed seams every once in a while I would find a float quartz chunk that just didn't belong with what I was finding. Bob was watching me dig and I told him there might be something good up the hill. I gave him a turn and he pulled out one of the nicest quartzes I have in my collection. Eight inches long and fairly well terminated for being a float (see below). I continued digging up the hill and only found a few quartz shards before it all petered out. I moved up the hill and found the mother pocket. Unfortunately there was a lot of damage to the crystals. This pocket must have really popped under pressure which helps explain the float I found 40 feet down the hill.
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| 20 cm |
As Bob has told me several times, "in a fair sized pocket there is always one good crystal". First were some nice amazonite crystals, very well formed. I cleaned out the amazonite knowing I had to come back because of the quartzy nature of the side wall to the pocket.
I guess this was a single pocket, but all the amazonite was on one side and the quartz appeared to be on the other side, or was it? I dug further down and there were prizes. Smoky quartz with amazonite. To be honest there was only one complete combination. The largest one pictured below has 3 repairs. I have learned to be careful when extracting specimens to try and keep them all together through the initial cleaning process and try to fit some pieces.
So you see me pictured above with a nice smoky following masked protocol :-) I actually found the mask helped quite a bit with the dusty conditions. The image to the right is a combo, but it has a lot of scuffing. The image below was the nicest but has a few repairs.
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| 12 cm across with largest smoky at 7cm |
This combo measures about 15cm across. Unfortunately it has many nicks/dings. After cleaning out this pocket we hit a dry spell for a while. It is hard to give up on an area you've had so many successes. Bob was the first to leave and tried another hilltop. I made my way over to where he was digging and found a small pocket in a rather dug up area. A tree had recently fallen over and on the root ball I noticed some amazonite. Not a big pocket, but the nicest color amazonite I had seen so far this year. Amazonite is pictured below to the right.
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| Fairly pristine example of amazonite |
I eventually got to the hilltop Bob was digging, and there seemed to be amazonite everywhere. Only problem is was pale, pale, pale. I would give it a 3 on a scale of 10 for color. Still it was fun to dig and Bob did find a seam with some better color pieces, maybe a 5 or 6 as I recall. We spent a solid month digging there and called the area the old road pegmatite as a jeep track went right through the center of the best digging area. I tired of this area first and decided to prospect the side of a hill where I had noticed some old digs. I found some float quartz first and then noticed some amazonite. It was obvious to me that it came from a dig about 20 feet up the hill, but I thought an old dead tree might have some specimens collected around its roots. I dug around the roots and sure enough, it was a collecting point for crystals that had eroded out of the pocket... score! I usually don't get too excited about digging float crystals but these were exceptionally gemmy, and many of them were spared of the trauma that you normally find on float crystals.
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| Some of the best gemmy float smokys I've ever found, most had some nice size over 12cm |
A little scuffing on some of these, but a really nice haul that the previous digger missed. It was mid July and this was my last significant find for 2020. We hit a wall and just couldn't seem to come up with much. We did have a fairly good goethite find in late fall, but our honey hole area seems to have dried up.
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| Well defined goethite crystals with some size (10 cm) |
We shall see what 2021 provides us. Until then have a great winter and hope for sunnier days ahead!
