brybry
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Post by brybry on Jan 10, 2022 17:45:17 GMT -5
Went Saturday for a co-worker's birthday. It had rained a couple days prior so lots & lots of sticky mud and clay. Morning temps were around 30, maybe a few degrees higher. I want to preface this with me having never been to a pay to dig type mine or any other mine before. So take this a grain of salt. 99% of what I found was quartz. Place is covered in white, rose, smokey and clear quartz. Some is banded, some isn't. I did find some tourmaline, mostly tourmaline in quartz, both rose & smokey. My co-worker found 2 small Beryl pieces, some small pieces of tourmaline and quartz. In the safety briefing, the mine owner said there is about 41 or so different minerals at the location. Being this was my first time, it was more to get the lay of the land. The clay in most areas was so wet and sticky that trying to sift the dirt in a screen smaller than 1/2" x 1/2" was pointless. I did get a heaping 5 gal bucket of tumbler rough, and nice little pile of tourmaline (with and without quartz), a cool mica display piece and a couple of thin mica books for display. Not a terrible haul for $35. Would cost me way more to buy and ship the rough, this way I got to pick it out myself. There is a BBQ joint down the road that comes out to take lunch orders and bring the food back. You can also pack in your own food, definitely bring your own drinks. The white lid is the tourmaline & tourmaline in quartz.
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Post by jasoninsd on Jan 10, 2022 20:07:49 GMT -5
That's a pretty nice haul for $35! I imagine it would be a LOT better when it was dry... Biggest question...was the BBQ good?
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Jan 10, 2022 20:11:36 GMT -5
The BBQ wasn't bad. My wife and her BFF want to go when it warms up. I'll have to get some screens made up. I wanna actually dig in the tourmaline pit when it's drier. The rose quartz there is pretty nice and there is some seriously dark smokey quartz too.
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waterboysh
spending too much on rocks
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Post by waterboysh on Jan 28, 2022 11:02:31 GMT -5
We go camping every year at FD Roosevelt and I was thinking about checking out Hogg mine when we go sometime next month. I don't really have much experience digging for my own rocks either, but I bet it'd be fun anyway. How well do you think a 4.5 year old could handle it? He's pretty interested in rocks and loves to dig, so I figure he'll have fun regardless of whether we find anything good.
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Jan 28, 2022 18:42:01 GMT -5
There were a bunch of little ones there. Hardest part would be keeping him entertained if he gets bored and there is a ton of loose rock laying around for him to paw through.
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quartzilla
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Post by quartzilla on Jan 28, 2022 19:24:10 GMT -5
Little eyes are sharp eyes! Closer to the ground too! Sometimes kids will surprise you with what they see that you don’t. Let us know what you find per chance you guys make the trip.
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Jan 28, 2022 21:33:12 GMT -5
Take a 1/4" screen, shovel and rock hammer. If you don't mind beating on boulders then take a 3-8 lb sledge. A little 3 prong garden rake would be helpful too.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Jan 28, 2022 21:45:35 GMT -5
Don't know how I missed this when you posted it, but thanks for sharing your experience and pictures! Looks like it could be fun.
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Jan 28, 2022 21:47:28 GMT -5
I had fun and BBQ for lunch. Not much gets better than that.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 29, 2022 12:37:03 GMT -5
I used to hit that mine 30 years ago. It was a timbered property that people visited long before it was a pay site. Load what you wanted. There was a barbecue grill made out of 2 to 3 foot long low grade aquamarine(beryl)crystals. There was also fine softball sized chunks of rose quartz scattered about without a single fracture in them. We landscaped a friend's property with volleyball to basketball sized chunks of nice material. couple of pick up truck loads. If you take a left out of the mine there was a store on the right hand corner of the first crossroads(Smith's Crossroads)that was riddled with cool little quartz crystals in the left bank of the parking lot facing the store. If you turned left at the crossroads and went about a 1/4 mile to top of hill there was a another exposure of rose quartz in the hill slope on left. It has an electric line easement running over it. Probably fenced by now. It needed a track hoe to break out the massive veins and exposures. No telling how much rose quartz is in the area. The military mined beryl there during WW2 to make beryllium tank cannon barrel liners. Other open timberland in the area was peppered with quartz crystals. Tumbled road gravel from the Hogg collected about 10 years ago.
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waterboysh
spending too much on rocks
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Post by waterboysh on Mar 10, 2022 17:09:26 GMT -5
Take a 1/4" screen, shovel and rock hammer. If you don't mind beating on boulders then take a 3-8 lb sledge. A little 3 prong garden rake would be helpful too. Well, we're going in 2 weeks time. At the risk of sounding dense... what is the 1/4" screen and rock hammer for? The shovel I get. I thought it would be digging. Is there a reason I'd need to be smashing rocks?
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Mar 10, 2022 17:23:15 GMT -5
Lots of big rocks are laying around. Some of what people are looking for are in larger rocks.
The screen is for when you dig.
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waterboysh
spending too much on rocks
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Post by waterboysh on Mar 14, 2022 15:51:34 GMT -5
I have more questions. I want to make sure we make the most of our time when we go. We went to Diamond Hill Mine in SC about 6 months ago and we were clueless about what we were doing and what we were looking for. Pretty much everything was coated in clay and you couldn't tell what you had. We had brought a spray bottle with us, but we ran out of water super early on. We basically just started piling random rocks that looked like they could be good into our bucket. We ended up with about 75% of what we brought home as something that probably should have just stayed put. We did get a few good finds, but not very many. Still had lots of fun though. 1. With no water supply available on site (or least I'm assuming so), what is the best way to make sure you can rinse off your finds and sort through them? 2. The only tools we really have is a small handheld garden rake and a couple of garden trowels. I'm not sure I want to buy a rock hammer yet (I wouldn't even know when I should use it to smash a rock). But, I think something like what he's using at 4:28 in this video could be helpful. What is this tool called? Side question: Is a rock pick and a rock hammer the same thing? A google image search returns the same results for both search terms. 3. While I love quartz, I'd love to find some other stuff. I see from Youtube videos that black tourmaline and beryl can be found here. Most videos seem to focus on what you can find, and not necessarily techniques to help you find anything. So any tips in that regard are welcome too.
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brybry
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Post by brybry on Mar 14, 2022 17:01:47 GMT -5
Take a cheap shovel and screen.
The Beryl is few and far between. You will have to dig for it. That's what the shovel and screen is for. You can take water with you, I didn't see a wash station but I've heard they have one. If it has rained within a couple days, the clay will be thick and sticky.
Dig for the tourmaline. What you find on the surface isn't always that great.
Surface collecting will you get you alot of quartz.
Take cash to pay for lunch.
Most people go to the long piles of dirt and screen shovel fulls. I haven't done that yet so no idea what you'll find that way.
One of the people I went with found 2 small (teeny) pieces of beryl when we went.
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