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Ducks lined up by the Wissahickon Creek
While we have visited many outcrops of rocks around the area, the one where we took these photos is by the wissahickon creek, just north of the free public parking area by the Vallery Green Inn.
View Fairmount Park Garnet Deposit in a larger map
This area is beautiful and you can see blocks of Wissahickon schist used for building stone, with garnets poking out of some of the blocks. There is a beautiful stone bridge there, along with all sorts of birds, small animals, providing a beautiful setting just outside the city. We went down to the wissahickon creek, descending on the west side of the bank. Trails form around the creek, revealing water worn mica chunks with garnets sticking out. The red color is interesting, but few if any are of any gem quality, they are simply a mineralogical interest item and a beautiful example of a mica schist. Philadelphia is a beautiful city and this deposit of Kyanite is just one more great reason to visit! Check out Hotels.com for great deals on hotel rooms in Philadephia!
A view from the trails by the Wissahickon Creek
Looking through the rocks down by the creekside
A tiny gem red garnet in matrix
A rockhammer to show you the typical size and color of the garnet baring mica schist
Finding a good specimen takes luck
A beautiful setting for a nature outing, the mica schist of the Wissahickon Creek is a great way to spend an afternoon!
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]]>The quarry is very interesting, mainly feldspar and massive quartz, with huge crystals of schorl tourmaline embedded inside the feldspar. Along with this are garnets, most always forming in one thin layer on the outside of the feldspar blocks, the rare find of a scrap of aquamarine is possible and uncommon radioactive crystals of monazite and thorianite. I wanted to try and find some of the radioactives and nice garnet plate, my friend was looking for schorl chunks to put into reference kits for the kids. We found everything that you could expect to find from the quarry and spent about 2 hours collecting before hitting the road back to Los Angeles, with a wide open freeway, pre-rush hour, it was a great trip. If you are in the Southern California area, this is an interesting place to check out and I hope you make it without any problems and who knows, maybe in a few years the road will be paved! (and gated, to keep you ruffians out) This is BLM land, no person should DARE to stop entry to that land. Access to this area has been served by that road which far predates the church or the houses being built up there. It is absolutely shameful if anyone tries to stop you.
Overlooking the quarry from the parking area.
For size reference, here is my hand.
A human for size reference.
More mouth-watering schorl!
This schorl crystal would fall to bits if we tried to remove it from matrix.
A typical scrap of Schorl Tourmaline found on the dumps.
Commonly seen are the blocks of feldspar, more uncommon is a coverage as rich as this with well formed crystals.
You can tell these are radioactive due to the radiation rings discoloring the quartz/feldspar matrix.
Leaving the quarry with some rocks to share with the kids.
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]]>Here is one of the cleaned specimens of garnet and staurolite in schist matrix from the creator of Mindat.org, Jolyon Ralph’s personal collection.
UPDATE EDIT NOV 11th 2012, just a couple weeks after this post was written: I have omitted the directions to this location, but leave the map up. The location has been sold and there have been no trespassing signs posted. The new land owners are not welcoming people to contact them and permission to collect at this location has been revoked. A sad fact, this is now a historical document. Who knows, it could always be resold to someone who appreciates keeping legacy going.
From the parking area it is just a quick walk through the woods…
To the “mine” which is a large area of mica schist filled with garnets and staurolite.
All over the area, garnets are simply sticking out everywhere you look.
In the tailings, there are tons of garnets, like the piece in the photo below.
Chunks of matrix like this one are all over the place. These little garnets are not as nice as the one below.
This sample shows that it has larger, solid garnets in the mixture of mica schist matrix. If you have a sand blaster, the mica schist comes off easily. If you do not have a sand blaster, you can simply try your luck splitting the matrix, sometimes you’ll get lucky and have a single crystal like the one below!
This specimen just popped out of the matrix. It is not cleaned, it still has a lot of mica attached to the surface.
The Green’s Farm Garnet location is a must visit site for anyone who loves minerals and is in the area!
We are EXTREMELY grateful to the owners for keeping a classic site like this open and accessible for all these years!
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