Post by joemojave on Dec 7, 2009 2:12:26 GMT -5
Bacchus Jasper
Where:
Near Rosamond, CA.
Accessablity:
This location can easily be reached via passenger car. You will have to walk approximately 50 yds uphill unless you have 4wd and probably some big tires.
Material to Collect:
Quartz crystal clusters and Jasper.
The jasper from this area is definately worth stopping for. Material is very abundant and available in all sizes up to picnic table sized, but you will need to dig around peices larger than head sized or so. The name comes from Bacchus, the roman god of wine. The color is a wine purple mixed with "brecciated" grape-leaf green shards. Some peices have a grape like surface. Many peices also have thin whitish circles or bloby ovals in the purple areas, and the best peices have ghostly white outlines with pure white hydrothermal quartz "lighting bolts".
The quartz crystals are found in large vugs in the jasper and usualy go up to 1/2 inch or so. The are usualy well terminated and it is likely that large doubly terminated crystals exist because micromount sized doubly terminated crystals have been found.
Equipment:
Rock pick/hammer
sturdy shoes
Diggin equipment for large peices.
where to look
The entire area has interesting geology, so feel free to explore and you will probably find something cool. I would recomend starting near the top of the hill to the right of the road looking for float and partialy submerge larger peices. There is a shallow pit mine on the opposite side of the hill that is uniteresting from a collecting point of veiw, and there is a very dangerous open mine shaft at the top of the hill. This is a "chimney" shaft that supplies air to a drift that must be several miles long. According to a friend of mine who volunteers as a mine search and rescue person, the drifts in this area are several thousand feet deep. Dropping a stone down this pit produces about 10 seconds of bouncing off the walls until the sounds become to soft to hear. Hopefully if you toss a rock down there is not a miner standing at the bottom!
Directions:
Please PM me for exact directions. If you are just passing through I can give you directions but I would rather meet up and go collecting togther in the area if we can settle on a date.