The May-Day Pocket #crystals #Colorado minerals #rockhounds

Bob at play... a very nice find

My mining partner-Bob found one of the biggest pockets I've ever seen. Since I had not dug much the prior year (2021), I kidded Bob that he needed to show me how to find a pocket again.  We went our separate ways once we got to the claim to prospect.  I found very little and near the end of the day I decided to see wat Bob was up to.  As I neared his spot, I noticed some microcline but little else.  We do not value microcline much, but Bob had invested a lot of time on this pegmatite and wasn't ready to give it up quite yet. Bob found a couple flat/tjin smoky quartz crystals (tabbies) and so I decided to watch his progress until quitting time.  I asked Bob, what was worse, digging microcline or watching somebody else dig microcline heh-heh.  Bob gathered up about a dozen well- formed microcline crystals and called it a day.  We both thought he might have more luck reversing course and digging where he was sitting.  

We returned a couple days later to Bobs dig and noticed claim jumpers had once again been out making holes and losing their tools on the claim.  I found a couple nice tools to add to my collection, maybe we scared them off when we arrived. Bob did as he suggested and reversed course by digging down the hill along the pegmatite. I left Bob to his dig and went up the hill to follow a newly discovered--albeit skinny pegmatite. My pegmatite was showing a little blue amazonite frozen in a seam.  After a couple hours of digging, I returned to see how Bob was doing. Bob showed me some fairly large chunks of quartz at the bottom of his dig. 

View of graphic granite above the pocket

The quartz exhibited crystal faces, so there was hope for euhedral crystals. Above the quartz vein, Bob was beginning to pull out some microcline plates. Everything was well-coated in red mud.  Soon the plates of microcline were coming out fairly quickly and the plates were large.  Some of plates were as big as dinner plates, well formed, and crystals with very crisp edges.  No quartz crystals were protruding from the microcline plates. I hung around and helped sort the pieces and wrap possible fits together.  By 3PM Bob decided he better quit as a few trips would be needed to carry all the crystals back to his truck.

In the pocket filled with microcline

 

While Bob wrapped and filled his backpack with crystals I became the relief digger and started pulling out microcline plates as well.  We stayed a bit longer than we had planned to, but we wouldn't be able to get back out again for a few days.  Bob left the hole wide open (prob not best practice, but after all it was just microcline). We talked about how to continue the dig on the way home. Bob decided the best course of action was to dig a bit deeper and take out the quartz below the microcline plates, hoping for some smoky quartz crystals.

I stuck with Bob for most this third day on the pocket and helped remove/sort  pieces as the dig proceeded.  Bobs intuition on the quartz was correct. While the quartz never pocketed out, there were a number of quartz crystals that appeared to have grown out of the quartz at the bottom of the pocket.  As 3PM approached, Bob sent me back in to remove crystals.  Bob once again wrapped and transported crystals while I dug. I noted the pocket was beginning to pinch off and it appeared the dig was nearly done.  Still I removed even more plates of microcline.  Some of the single microcline crystals reached almost the size of softballs.  We drove home and we both thought the pocket was nearly finished.  The bottom of the pocket and sides needed to be further probed to make sure we got everything. The final dimensions of Bobs microcline pocket were close to 8 feet long, 2 feet wide and 5 feet down. The lens shaped pocket provided 4 days of entertainment over a period of 2 weeks.  

A couple of smokies in the pocket. Pic to the right
shows a large chunk of quartz unearthed with
 crystals attached.

The fourth visit to Bobs pocket was primarily a recheck of everything and then finally remediation.  I went back to my amazonite seam in my skinny pegmatite from a couple days earlier.  I hoped it would form a pocket, but all I got were a few single small crystals. The seam never opened up. I got a lot of teasers from this seam. I followed the pegmatite up the hill, I was down 6 feet. The effort was just becoming too much work for the minimal returns. 

Congrats to Bob on an exceptional pocket! 

One of the nicer plates of microcline

Lots of potential fits from this significant portion of Bobs find

A microcline Betty for sure!