Post by geoff on Oct 3, 2012 0:12:25 GMT -5
Had a lot of great trips this year, even the one that ended in me getting stalked by a lynx. Went out to a few of my favorite near by locations. Pinochle Creek Road for some double terminated quartz crystals. Hicks Creek for some Zeolites. Caribou Creek for no damn thunder eggs lol. Bonnie lake for quartz crystals and prehnite. And Kings Creek to see the damage from the flooding and to see if any tourmilnated rose quartz washed down.
At Pinochle Creek Rd I was working a weathered calcite vein I found on a previous trip. I started by using a small fracturing charge to break up some of the basalt.
It was sunday and I only had four seconds of cannon fuse.
After a half hour I had brought down over 500 pounds of basalt and chased the vein to the end. Found around a half pound of crystals.
While at Hicks Creek a plane came through to survey the flood damage along the Matanuska river.
Scenes like this are all along the river after a record breaking number of rain storms during September.
Caribou Creek was a wash. Even though it was lower than it had been all year, I only found a couple interesting rocks. No thunder eggs or Talkeetna agate.
Near Bonnie Lake there is a steep hillside of hornblende and plagioclase with calcite veins crusted with prehnite. This is also the first time I found quartz crystal clusters at this location so I updated the Mindat page.
Looking down the hillside.
Big old hornblend crystals here.
A pocket of prehnite with quartz crystals.
And here is one of the quartz clusters I found. This is the smaller of the two, the big one is in soaking in some Iron Out with the prehnite.
The road was almost blocked by this shed sized rock that came down from all the rain.
I figured I'd try to help clear the road.
Here is a piece with a nice prehnite crust.
Last stop was Kings River. Still too washed out to get down to the gravels, the flooding really did a number. From where my truck is parked down to where I'm standing used to be a gentle slope. The river bank was edged by campgrounds on both sides. The structure is part of the old highway bridge. It was covered by 5 feet of gravels.
But it wasn't all bad. My baby helped throw rocks in the river to fix the erosion.
All in all a good end to the year. After the Iron Out treatment is done I'll put up more pictures off my specimens.
At Pinochle Creek Rd I was working a weathered calcite vein I found on a previous trip. I started by using a small fracturing charge to break up some of the basalt.
It was sunday and I only had four seconds of cannon fuse.
After a half hour I had brought down over 500 pounds of basalt and chased the vein to the end. Found around a half pound of crystals.
While at Hicks Creek a plane came through to survey the flood damage along the Matanuska river.
Scenes like this are all along the river after a record breaking number of rain storms during September.
Caribou Creek was a wash. Even though it was lower than it had been all year, I only found a couple interesting rocks. No thunder eggs or Talkeetna agate.
Near Bonnie Lake there is a steep hillside of hornblende and plagioclase with calcite veins crusted with prehnite. This is also the first time I found quartz crystal clusters at this location so I updated the Mindat page.
Looking down the hillside.
Big old hornblend crystals here.
A pocket of prehnite with quartz crystals.
And here is one of the quartz clusters I found. This is the smaller of the two, the big one is in soaking in some Iron Out with the prehnite.
The road was almost blocked by this shed sized rock that came down from all the rain.
I figured I'd try to help clear the road.
Here is a piece with a nice prehnite crust.
Last stop was Kings River. Still too washed out to get down to the gravels, the flooding really did a number. From where my truck is parked down to where I'm standing used to be a gentle slope. The river bank was edged by campgrounds on both sides. The structure is part of the old highway bridge. It was covered by 5 feet of gravels.
But it wasn't all bad. My baby helped throw rocks in the river to fix the erosion.
All in all a good end to the year. After the Iron Out treatment is done I'll put up more pictures off my specimens.