Post by Michael John on Jun 24, 2009 20:14:57 GMT -5
A gold prospector friend of mine came by this morning with a gleem in his eye. He'd been prospecting out by the Johnnie mine yesterday, had found a few things that he knew I'd be interested in, and wanted to take me out there immediately. Who was I to argue? Off we went.
The legendary Johnnie area is just north of Pahrump, not even a 15 minute drive from home. The first stop was only a couple hundred yards from the road, where there were massive piles of chrysocolla, much different from the Blue Mule material. I about messed my drawers when I first saw it, but quickly discovered that most of it was just copper ore, of no lapidary value. However, I did find about 20 pounds of VERY cool copper-based materials in quartz in the very short time we were there. I'm sure there's a LOT more there, but this wasn't the "main attraction" that he dragged me out there for, so we jumped back in the truck and headed for a different part of the area.
After maybe 20 minutes of driving up a pretty nasty "road", he stopped and told me I was about to be amazed. Climbing up this little hill, I discovered that he'd made a major understatement. The whole top of this hill was a massive outcropping of purple/pink/red/orange jasper/quartzite that was absolutely incredible. Needless to say, I started scurrying to his truck with a bunch of it, but he stopped me before I could even get half of it in the truck. He said, "Wait, there's more!"
We got back in the truck and drove less than a half mile further up the road, coming upon a spring with an even MORE gorgeous outcropping of similar stuff behind it!
As is my usual goal, I ended-up with over 500 pounds in total, and the whole trip was only about 4 hours. He told me to hurry up and sell it so that he could take me back out there to get more!
So, there ya have it ... pics, including me, and here are a couple of bad pics I just took of a couple of the big chunks...
It's probably hard to tell from my bad pics, but a lot of this stuff is even nicer than the Boysenberry Quartzite I collect. I'll have some up for sale real soon, and I'll try to take better pics.
The legendary Johnnie area is just north of Pahrump, not even a 15 minute drive from home. The first stop was only a couple hundred yards from the road, where there were massive piles of chrysocolla, much different from the Blue Mule material. I about messed my drawers when I first saw it, but quickly discovered that most of it was just copper ore, of no lapidary value. However, I did find about 20 pounds of VERY cool copper-based materials in quartz in the very short time we were there. I'm sure there's a LOT more there, but this wasn't the "main attraction" that he dragged me out there for, so we jumped back in the truck and headed for a different part of the area.
After maybe 20 minutes of driving up a pretty nasty "road", he stopped and told me I was about to be amazed. Climbing up this little hill, I discovered that he'd made a major understatement. The whole top of this hill was a massive outcropping of purple/pink/red/orange jasper/quartzite that was absolutely incredible. Needless to say, I started scurrying to his truck with a bunch of it, but he stopped me before I could even get half of it in the truck. He said, "Wait, there's more!"
We got back in the truck and drove less than a half mile further up the road, coming upon a spring with an even MORE gorgeous outcropping of similar stuff behind it!
As is my usual goal, I ended-up with over 500 pounds in total, and the whole trip was only about 4 hours. He told me to hurry up and sell it so that he could take me back out there to get more!
So, there ya have it ... pics, including me, and here are a couple of bad pics I just took of a couple of the big chunks...
It's probably hard to tell from my bad pics, but a lot of this stuff is even nicer than the Boysenberry Quartzite I collect. I'll have some up for sale real soon, and I'll try to take better pics.
