Monthly Archives: February 2021

Beryl and Pegmatite Minerals at the Simpson Quarry, South Glastonbury, CT

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Overview: One of many abandoned feldspar prospects in Central CT, this particular location has been a popular beryl collecting site for several decades. This location is one of the most visited pegmatites in Connecticut if not all of New England and is somewhat of a local classic for beryl.

Large, sharp blue aquamarine beryls have been found both in the dumps and in solid pegmatite at this location. A variety of other minerals can be found at this site as well, including some rare species.

Conneticut Beryl Aquamarine Crystal

37mm tall beryl dug in 2009 by CT field collector Adam Berluti

Radioactive Mineral Torbernite found in Conneticut

2cm tall specimen covered with minute green Torbernite crystals. Roger Sedgwick collection. (Source: https://www.mindat.org/photo-494986.html)

This is one of the first sites many collectors in CT visit, and it is not hard to find something worth bringing home. The collecting status of this location is unclear (and with all sites featured on this website, you are responsible for obtaining permission and checking current property ownership), and as of early 2021 it remains unposted and is still frequented by diggers in the area.

Quarry dumps at the Simpson. Dig through these dumps to find nice aquamarine beryl crystals as well as many other pegmatite minerals like almandine garnet, schorl, torbernite, and columbite. (Source: https://www.mindat.org/photo-123808.html. Image copyright 2004 Peter Cristofono)

Quarry dumps with foliage down. Taken April 2nd 2011 by Matthew Kimball. (Source: https://www.mindat.org/photo-390478.html)

Getting there: This mine is easy to get to. Park at the end of Michele Drive in Portland, CT. You will see a small path through the woods to your left. Follow the path until you see the very obvious big quarry dumps approximately where the pin in the photo is. You will have to cross some swampy areas. The location is approximately a quarter of a mile northeast from where you park. A word of caution, the collecting status of the location is not officially known. Many people dig here though it may be private property. The locality has been frequented by collectors on a near daily basis for decades.

Location of the Simpson Quarry, and location of beryl crystals.

Collecting: There are two main approaches to digging this spot- dump digging and hard rock mining. At minimum you will want to bring a shovel, crack hammer and chisels to the location but other tools that may be useful are hand rakes, a sledgehammer, sifters, small bags, and a UV light. Many rare minerals are found at this site, some of which, autunite and hyalite, are highly fluorescent. The mosquitoes get terrible at this spot in the summer, be prepared with lots of bug spray. Pegmatite is an extremely hard rock and will take persistence to break. The mica and quartz can be extremely sharp so wearing gloves is a good idea. Do not get discouraged if you have a difficult time working the hard rock. Digging pegmatite takes immense skill and practice. It is something that experienced New England diggers take years to hone.

A large 6mm microlite dug at Simpson by Andrew Kruegel. A unique feature about this pegmatite is the abundance of this rare tantalum mineral. This example shows the typical form and color. A loupe can help you spot these more easily. (Source: https://www.mindat.org/photo-525514.html)

Geology and Mineralogy: This locality is very similar to the other Paleozoic pegmatite in CT. It is linear in shape and not very pocket rich. This pegmatite also contains a great deal of heavier rare elements. Collectors often visit this site only interested in beryl, but perhaps more notable to the mineralogist is the abundant microlite found in sugary albite. Microlite contains the rare element Tantalum. These microlite occur in brown modified octahedral crystals. If you are interested in them, familiarize yourself with them on mindat.org. Microlite is often somewhat radioactive and will produce a radiation halo, which is a good way to spot them.

Sources:

https://www.mindat.org/loc-29587.html

Sea Cliff Zeolites at Oceanside, Tillamook County, Oregon – A Zeolite Tutorial

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Volcanic Basalt Lava is found all over the world. Often the host for beautiful minerals and crystals of quartz, calcite, agate and a host of zeolite minerals. The Amethyst deposits of Southern Brazil/Uruguay are considered the best quartz in basalt find, as are the fine Zeolite deposits of Southern India. Before India, many places were considered to be the world’s best zeolite deposits, like Scotland or Iceland.

It just goes to show, deposits of minerals in basalt rock deposits are well worth searching out in your local area. Consider the volcanic basalts of Oregon/Washington. Beautiful examples of rare and exotic minerals were once only known from these basalts, including, shockingly to some collectors, Cavansite!

Small Cavansite crystals on matrix from the type locality in Oregon

Specimen of Cavansite from the first place it was found, in Oregon. Zeolite deposits found in volcanic deposits are well worth inspecting for rockhounding possibilities!

Found in volcanic lava that has interacted with water, zeolites are beautiful minerals which are found in a huge diversity of different appearances. They are known to form where enormous volcanic events have occurred in the ancient past when lava flows into a body of water.

The lava instantly chills, creating a unique bubbly, rounded texture called pillow basalt where within spaces between the rounded “pillows” grow delicate crystals of zeolites as steam chemically leaches the basalts and forms new minerals.

Steam may rise through the molten lava as well, where the rock may solidify before it escapes. This type of rock is called a vesicular basalt. Many minerals tend to form in the “bubbles” or vesicles in this type of rock.

Pillow Basalt that zeolites are found in

A recently formed pillow basalt at the Galapagos Rift versus an ancient pillow basalt in the Bonin Islands, Japan. Zeolite minerals are found between the “lobes” of the lava.
A vesicular basalt boulder. The holes are known as vesicles and represent where rising gasses got trapped in the rock. Minerals often form in these vesicles.)

The Cape Lookout area is the remains of a volcanic island that emerged in the Miocene period, about 16 million years ago. Cracks in the earth formed, releasing lava into the sea which cooled on contact with the water, forming pillow basalts and bubbly vesicular basalts which further altered to form zeolite minerals in the pores.

Many rare zeolites are found here, not the ones you would typically see in the large, flashy specimens from India many collectors love, but equally as beautiful if you can appreciate tiny things. Minerals you may encounter are erionite, mordenite, clinoptilolite, and dachiardite. Often these are found with calcite and clay minerals, the latter can give specimens some nice color and visual depth.

Specimens from this area are typically small, but absolutely stunning especially under magnification. A good, readily available microscope to view your microminerals with is the Dino-Lite, which you can attach to your computer via USB.

A Dino-Lite digital microscope.

On this page, our focus is on two collecting sites you can visit, though exploring the beach may yield many more discoveries. Keep an eye out for sprays and nodules of zeolite minerals in the rock, much of which occurs in vesicular basalt, which looks like Swiss cheese.

The first area is Short Beach. There should be a stairway near a creek where you can access the rocky beach below. Here you will find boulders of vesicular basalt that you can break up to yield minerals in the vesicles.
Bring a pocket lens or loupe with you so you can more easily see minerals in the vesicles. They will be somewhat obvious, appearing as white puffballs and sprays, but some may be more hidden.

There is said to be better collecting even still at Tunnel Beach, down the road to the south.

North of the tunnel, you will see pillow basalt cliffs. Formed as lava was ejected into the sea, these cliffs and the surrounding boulders are rich in zeolites and offer some of the best collecting in the area. Use the tunnel to access the beach.

Minerals: These localities are heaven especially to the micro-mount collector. Some beautiful photos of material from the surrounding area are on Mindat (these are copyrighted and we don’t care to hotlink, just click the links for some great photos).

Embed:
https://www.mindat.org/photo-750805.html
Caption: Found by Rudy Tschernich, famous PNW zeolite collector. 14 mm FOV Golden erionite hemispheres on a white backdrop, looking like a fried egg with a broken yolk
https://www.mindat.org/photo-750632.html
Tiny, bushlike mordenite in a tiny vesicle from Tunnel Beach. Found by Rudy Tschernich
https://www.mindat.org/photo-257230.html
About a 1 inch wide plate of green gray clinoptilolite on mordenite from Short Beach, collected by Bill Tompkins
https://www.mindat.org/photo-751603.html
Tiny, about 2.5mm vesicle of delicate golden erionite sprays. Found by Rudy Tschernich

Collecting Zeolites: To do the best job you can collecting these delicate specimens, you will need to be prepared to break the hard basalt rock. Use a heavy crack hammer and a chisel to smash the boulders open, revealing fresh material. Zeolites are extremely delicate and the freshest, nicest ones will be found unexposed inside the rocks.

As said above, loupe or hand lens will help you see what’s going on inside the tiny vesicles a lot better. Some of the most beautiful specimens from this location are extremely tiny so you may miss them without a lens.

Remember to wrap your specimens very carefully. Many of these specimens are extremely delicate to the point that even blowing on them may damage them. Do not wash anything very velvety, hairy, or puffy or even moisture can mat and destroy the crystals.

You will have to time your collecting with the tides at these locations. Be aware of the tides and weather conditions before you go to the beach and collect.

More Info:
https://www.mindat.org/loc-210854.html
https://www.mindat.org/loc-205422.html
https://www.netartsbaytoday.org/html/zeolites_of_oceanside.html

And, if the Cavansite deposit sends your imagination wild, check out this article:
https://www.mindat.org/article.php/964/Field+Trip+to+Cavansite+Type+Locaility

Digging Native Ruby and Sapphire at the Cherokee Mine in North Carolina – Pay to Dig

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Red Ruby Crystal from the Cherokee Mine

A beautiful red ruby straight from the Cherokee Mine.

Digging your own precious native gemstone may sound too good to be true to a lot of folks. Many of the sluice mines in the Southeast “salt” their material, meaning they enrich it with stones from all over the world and this can be disappointing when you expected to find something right from the ground beneath your feet. The Cherokee Mine in Macon County, North Carolina offers awesome ruby and sapphire sluicing from 100% local, unsalted material right from their mine!

Though ruby, sapphire, and corundum in general are the focus, other minerals namely red rhodolite garnet, blue-white kyanite, and metallic red brown rutile can be found with them too. This material is alluvial, meaning these crystals weathered out of metamorphic rock and tumbled around for thousands of years until they arrived at the mine, so given this, the ore is in the form of soil that contains the weathered-out gemstones. It is up to you to screen through the material and identify what is a gem, and what isn’t… but the kind staff is more than willing to help you!

While at the time this is published, Feburary 2021, the mine is closed for winter and the Covid Pandemic, however, we are all looking forward to a re-opening of this location, hopefully, in summer 2021, if life works out well.

Check out Bryan Major digging at the Cherokee Mine video below to get an idea of what the experience there is like!

The Cherokee Mine is a fee dig site, meaning you pay to dig their material, but they supply a lot of the equipment you need to go through the gravel!
From their website:

$20.00/Per Person – Includes One (1) Pre-Filled Bucket of our 100% Unsalted Gem Ore. ( * See below for explanation of this change)
Age 5 and under: Free Admission with an accompanying paid miner (no mining screen or bucket of gem ore provided – Li’l Miners get to “assist” an older accompanying miner).
Only paid miners are permitted to sit on the flume line, other than Li’l Miners as noted above.  Other non-mining members of a group are welcome to enjoy our picnic area and lawnchairs.
Do not take Coon Creek Road.

Group Rate (20 people or more): $5.00 discount Per Person

Includes One (1) Pre-Filled Buckets of our 100% Unsalted Gem Ore.

Active U.S. Military and U.S. Military Veterans: $5.00 Admission Discount
(Military ID Card is Required Upon Admission)
One discount per customer. Discounts cannot be combined, conjoined, transferred, conferred, or multiplied.
$5.00 per additional bucket of our 100% Unsalted Gem Ore.
CASH ONLY.

Open May through October
Monday-Saturday: 9am to 4pm*
Sunday: Noon to 5pm*
*Weather Permitting
At the mine, you will be shown specimens of the gemstones so you know what to look for before they let you loose. Then they will provide you with a bucket of material to bring to the flume. The flume is a channel of running water used to clean the dirt off your gemstones, which you screen in it and carefully examine to sort the gems from the leaverites. They provide the screen.
Keep in mind that some of the gemstones might be extremely tiny or obscured by surface coatings. You might want to bring a magnifying device, tweezers, and plastic bags so you can extract tiny finds and save them in a place you won’t lose them. Mining can be tough on the hands so you might want gloves too. Bring sunscreen, water, bug spray, and food. Be prepared!
Directions:
For BEST results, FIRST please enter address of “4433 Bryson City Road” THEN enter address of “2586 Ruby Mine Road, Franklin NC 28734”. Any directions which state “Take Coon Creek Road” or “Flowers Gap Road” are INCORRECT! That will force you to turn back and start over.
4433 Bryson City Road is the intersection of Sanderstown Road and Bryson City Road (also known as Route 28). From that point you will proceed north to Cowee Creek Road, which is just after the Cowee Baptist Church, where you bear right. At the next intersection (1-1/2 miles), keep right at the “COWEE VALLEY” sign and the mine will be 2-1/2 miles on the left.
DO NOT TAKE COON CREEK ROAD or FLOWERS GAP ROAD.
DO NOT TAKE COON CREEK ROAD or FLOWERS GAP ROAD.
DO NOT TAKE COON CREEK ROAD or FLOWERS GAP ROAD.
DO NOT TAKE COON CREEK ROAD or FLOWERS GAP ROAD.

ADDITIONALLY:  It has been brought to our attention that the evil GPS will also try and lead you astray from the paths of righteous gem hunting, and try to tell you to turn onto RUBY KNOLL LANE, or onto GEMSTONE LANE.
IGNORE YOUR GPS IF THIS HAPPENS.  Please stay on Ruby Mine Road until you reach the Cherokee Mine.  Modern Technology is wonderful – especially when it works properly

See their website if you need more info.

Fluorescence of Ruby:
Ruby glows when exposed to green or blue laser light or UV light. It will fluoresce a brilliant, easy to notice orange color when exposed to the light. Keeping a laser pointer or pocket LED UV light can help you determine if you have a true ruby if you think you’ve found one. Take a look at this video where a green laser pointer is used to differentiate a natural ruby from a fake one:

The natural ruby on the right gives off a blinding orangey fluorescence. The rubies in your screen will do this too. It is due to the presence of chromium in the rubies and the ability for that element’s electrons to get excited and emit photons when they are exposed to the upper parts of the visible light spectra and the UV.
It is a good idea to buy a cheap green laser pointer or a tiny UV light to bring with you to this mine.
UV lights used to be expensive, but the prices have dramatically come down. Look at this great deal on Amazon for some pocket UV LED flashlights. This would be a great thing to bring to this mine.

The Cherokee Mine offers some of the fines, unsalted alluvial gem mining in the US. If you live in North Carolina or planning on travelling there, this is one of the finest places you can visit for gemstone flume mining. Few mines offer ore of high enough quality to catch the interest of locals if they didn’t salt it. For just $20.00 and a fee of $5.00 per extra bucket of ore, this is a great deal for the rockhound, gemstone, or lapidary enthusiast.