[Rockhounds] Favorite Collecting Trips of 2008

[Alan Goldstein]

2008 was a good year for fossil collecting, less so for minerals.

Explored western KY mineral areas with Bill Frazer looking for new dig 
sites. Found a great celestine locality! Found spectacular hemimorphite 
specimens during the Clement Show & Dig in June at the Hickory Cane mine. I 
was also able to collect at Cave in Rock during a GSA field trip, but was 
turned away during a June visit.

Corydon Quarry was decent this year during the only visit, but I never had 
time for additional trips. I will make an effort to do better this year.

Other southern Indiana quarries (Silurian and Devonian fossil sites) proved 
to be worthwhile. One of the better Devonian collecting areas was graded and 
prepared for blasting, so it will be mediocre for 2009. I could explore the 
massive waste pile to see if any interesting fossils wash out before they 
grass it over. But it has a pretty steep angle of repose.

The Waldron shale was productive as usual. Found a nice crinoid calyx its 
arms had pinnules! I picked it up for  flagstone, but when I glanced down 
and saw the crinoid, it is now safely ensconced in my collection. If one 
quarry expands their shale exposures as anticipated, it should prove to be 
the start of a better collecting site.

Spent time investigating some exposures of the Kope Formation (Upper 
Ordovician) in northern KY and found some very interesting fossils.

At this point I can safely say I've got fossils out the whazoo.

2009 is off to a good start. A friend and I did some reconnoitering at a 
local cement quarry famous for Devonian fossils this afternoon. Did more 
walking around (rather muddy) than collecting, but found a new spot for 
Beechwood Limestone fauna (including a nice silicified blastoid) and a large 
area in the North Vernon Fm. loaded with well-preserved brachiopods. The 
Jeffersonville Limestone was - as usual - packed with corals. Some swaths 
have one silicified fossil per square inch over many square feet!

I'm hoping to explore new areas for fossils and minerals this year. I hope 
2009 is a good collecting year for you, too!

Alan G.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kris Rowe" <lapidary.specialties at gmail.com>
To: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors" 
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Favorite Collecting Trips of 2008


> Howdy, Nathan!
>                          Thanks for the great field trip reports, and
> especially for the GREAT web pages on the Snowbird Mine! I'm still trying 
> to
> pry my jaw off the floor after seeing the sheer size of that sceptered
> quartz crystal!
> I'd love to see some pics of the parisite crystals you mined, and 
> especially
> the calcites from the Eureka.
>
> Being stuck in the Central Valley of California for 360 days last year, I
> only got in 3 days collecting, due to one of my periodic "total life
> remakes." Thankfully, 2009 looks like it will be a much better year for
> collecting.
>
> My first collecting day was to the Panoche Hills, west of New Idria and 
> the
> Clear Creek BLM Management area. I've collected several sites in this area
> for over 20 years and find a plethora of cuttable materials here, 
> including
> agates (plasma, banded, nodular "root beer" and many other types); 
> agatized
> palm, reed and wood; jaspers of many colors and patterns; nephrite AND
> jadeite jades; howleite; ironstone; opal and opalites; serpentines; 
> opalized
> shells; "reef" fossils; basalt cobbles;  and the frequent "what the HECK 
> is
> that?"
>
> One of my favorites from the area is 'satin spar', fibrous cutting grade
> seam gypsum. It's the perfect material for teaching hand cutting. Unlike
> many tutors of the lapidary arts, I prefer to start students on soft 
> stones,
> with wet/dry sandpaper. This encourages them to "feel" the stone, rather
> than catering to the modern "need for speed." The speed that they 
> experience
> when I allow them to saw their piece of 'spar' in preparation for sanding 
> by
> hand gives them a realization of its 'butter' softness. Rather than ending
> up with a stone that demonstrates how much of a beginner they are and
> discouraging them, I try to make sure they learn that most basic lapidary
> skill: Patience! This results in a stone that looks like a "bragger,"
> without costing them a fortune.
>
> But, I digress (as I usually do!) Back to collecting. With the closure of
> the Clear Creek area due to "asbestos  danger" ("Oh dear, oh my!") my
> collecting will NOT include benetoite, fresnoite, or neptunite. Nor willl 
> I
> be able prospect for the lovely jadeite and nephrite found for the last
> century in this area. Personally, I resent being treated like a child who
> cannot take sufficient precautions against a "suspected carcinogen." It
> seems that we should only be exposed to carcinogens when it's taxable, 
> like
> filling our gas tanks.
>
> O.K., enough soapbox ... (putting it away ...)
>
> On to Trona!
>
> Without a doubt, one of my top 5 "most enjoyable" collecting experiences 
> was
> this years Searles Valley Mineral Society
> Gem-O-Rama<http://www1.iwvisp.com/tronagemclub/tronagemclub.html>!
> Nestled in the arid wilderness, Trona is a dusty, sulfurous oasis between
> the bustling (yawn!) Metropolis of
> Ridgecrest<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridgecrest,_California>(pop.
> 25,000) and Death Valley.
> The home of the Searles Valley Mineral Corp, Trona produces many different
> evaporate minerals in world class quantities.
> For the mineral collector who craves evaporates, Trona is THE place! Most,
> specifically, it's THE place one weekend out of the year!
>
> For over sixty-five years, rockhounds have come to Trona the second 
> weekend
> of October to brave the smelly mud, flying crystals and stinking brine 
> that
> are the trademarks of this great collecting event. 2008 was a great 
> example
> of just how great collecting can be on Searles Lake.
>
> We (my partner Laura and myself) arrived late in the evening of October 11
> at Motel 6 in Ridgecrest. We're both of the belief that, even when in a
> motel, "roughing it" is an essential part of any collecting trip! So, in 
> the
> interest of economy, we settled for a queen bed, and cable TV.
>
> Eye rubbingly early the next morning, we lit out for Trona, and hopefully,
> something to eat. Note to all: Get up early, if you expect to eat before 
> the
> first field trip.
>
> Arriving in Trona after a 30 minute drive, we found and stood in the
> appropriate lines. Welllllll ...  I stood in line, while my paramour went
> "in search of" comfort facilities. Let me state right here, the Searles
> Valley folks do a bang up job, and put on one of the best "small town" 
> shows
> I've seen. They also have what is the most impressive "clubhouse" I've 
> ever
> seen! Still, the word for the smart collector is to get there eartly. 
> There
> are great dealers, great club members who actually KNOW where things are,
> and to warn those with sensitive noses, an ever present sulfurous stink!
> Only when a stiff wind blows does the "rotton egg" odor abate.
>
> After standing in line to buy donuts, only to find the last were sold to 
> the
> folks ahead of me, we were able to get a banana! (Blessings to the lovely
> club member who gave us her banana! Get there EARLY!) That, Pepsi and
> cornchips were our breakfast, while we waited for the "Mudpile" field trip
> to begin.
>
> One of the great pleasures of collecting at Trona is the brief drive from
> the show grounds. The "dry" lake bed is IN town ... or is it the other way
> around? Anywho, the organisation of the field trip is flawless, and within 
> 5
> minutes we arrived at the most impressive pile of stinking, sticky muck 
> I've
> ever had the pleasure of getting my shoes stuck in. Found within these
> mudpiles are rare hanksite crystals, trona crystals, borates and other
> evaporates. Also to be found were throngs of people who were VERY serious
> about getting the best and biggest hanksites!
>
> Runnning around, getting stuck like ants in honey, were throngs of 
> children
> of all ages, some of whom were making their first ever trip away from 
> inner
> city L.A. The looks on the faces of those kids made me feel as young as 
> they
> were, as they pulled out and washed off hanksites the size of soda cans 
> and
> larger!
>
> There were troughs of lake brine for washing these crystals, which easily
> and quickly melt in any less than a saturate saline soloution. These 
> quickly
> became elbow to elbow affairs, and I generally had at least one small 
> child
> under each arm washing away as I smiled down on them. I seemed to be the
> least serious (or the most amused) collector there, and recieved many
> scornful looks as I chuckled and cracked jokes with harried parents. Of
> course, these scornfull looks came from small children, who knew I 
> couldn't
> possibly appreciate the gravity of the situation!
>
> And, being friendly and marginally knowledgible, I soon had children
> approaching with the ever present question: "What's THIS one worth?"
>
> Being my first time for hanksite collecting, I made many "educated" 
> guesses,
> hoping I wasn't too far wrong!
> No matter what my opinion was, the young digger would run off in search of
> "the BIG One!" Many of the smallest kids found crystals that dwarfed mine!
>
> Having filled the plastic file boxes we brought for hanksite (keep your
> hanksite moist, but not wet, until you can clean it completely) we left 
> with
> the "last call." The drive back was short, and the food and hospitality at
> the Clubhouse were great! After a sandwich and soda, we joined the bull
> session in the field trip parking lot, and waited for the call to mount 
> up!
>
> As always, the bull session was one of the best parts of collecting, and 
> we
> made new friends from far places.
> John hailed from Minnesota, and entertained me with tales of gold 
> propecting
> in Alaska and sapphires in Montana. A noisome throng appoached, students
> from the University of Arizona at Prescott. We traded collecting tales, 
> and
> I showed them my "pet" Shaver Lake amethyst, which always goes propecting
> with me.
>
> The afternoon trip was the fabled "Blowhole" trip, of which details can be
> found at the linked "SLG&MS" site. It was truly impresive to watch the 
> video
> at the clubhouse & see the explosives in use by the Navy Ordnance 
> officers,
> and the crystals being pumped out of the ground. As luck would have it, 
> the
> pumping that we'd seen as we passed the site that morning was the only 
> we'd
> be seeing.
> As the drilling rig was working the last hole, the salt crust below gave
> way, and the whole rig tipped on its side! However, we, the eager
> collectors, were barely affected. Aside from looking wistfully toward the
> now "off limits" hole with drill rig waiting for a tow truck, we gave our
> attention to sorting through the tons of freshly pumped crystals.
> Again, as in the morning, the children were happy to have someone who'd 
> give
> them an identity for their discoveries, and what discoveries they were! My
> own crystals paled before their glories, and I wished that I were 9 years
> old again.
>
> I made friends with a 9 year old named Mathew, and his somewhat frayed
> father, who was quite busy trying to herd 4 kids and still gather a few
> crystals for himself. Matthew had the sort of luck I can only wish for,
> showing up with handful after handful of rare top notch hanksite. The
> toppers were a fist (that is, MY fist!) sized, museum clean "root beer"
> brown hanksite and a very rare, 1/2" sulfo-halite.
> Now, my eyes nearly left my skull when I saw that hanksite, since the 
> usual
> hanksite is green to amber colored, and clear. This one derived its color
> from the dreamy, creamy "cumulous cloud" clay inclusions that floated 
> below
> its surface. When he asked the inevitible "How much?" I overcame 
> temptation,
> and looked into his eyes. "Matthew," I slowly said, "I can't tell you." 
> His
> small brow furrowed as I continued,"That crystal is so fine, if I were 
> you,
> I'd never sell it." His Dad smiled and appreciated the moment. I'm sure 
> that
> I'll see them again next year. Dad said I would!
>
> We quickly met up with several new friends whom we'd met at lunch, Nancy &
> Kim, from Illinois. Kim is a GIA Graduate Gemologist, who'd decided to 
> come
> with her Mom to see what field collecting was all about! They asked 
> sweetly
> if I'd help them to identify thier finds, and as always (especially for
> pretty ladies!) I said "Sure!" My darling Laura had invited them to sit 
> with
> us, and found us 2 new friends!
> I was in my own glory, surrounded by young and old collectors, and gave 
> the
> lions share of my attention to the collectors. Kim told us how she'd been 
> a
> "nail artist" with a special love for gems, and had recieved her G.G. 
> quite
> recently. When I said I'd love to do the same, she urged me on. "It's 
> easier
> than you think!"
> We'll see!
>
> I did come away with my own "special" crystal. When they were leaving,
> Matthew and his Dad came over, and after Dad thanked me for my help, 
> Matthew
> held out his hand, and gave me a perfect 1/2" twinned hanksite! That 
> crystal
> now resides in my Favorites cabinet, smelling faintly of sulfur.
>
> After that we packed up, redolent of hydrogen sulfide and feeling salt
> chapped, with a constant breeze blowing our hair in our faces. While I was
> packing away our new treasures, Laura, Kim & Nancy wandered over to the 
> edge
> of the collecting area, and out onto the adjoining salt. After getting the
> ok to dig in, they pried loose the foamy grey surface salt, and found
> enchanting "fairy towers" of dew deposited, snowy white salt "frost!" Now,
> these pieces aren't small or cabinet sized, they're HUGE! We have five,
> nestled carefully among dessicant packs in our garage, awaiting my
> attention. They'll soon make lovely additions to someones *very* dry 
> living
> room! We had quite a time finding tubs to transport the still wet, fragile
> specimens 250 miles home.
>
> After returning to the motel and cleaning off the accumulated muck, we had 
> a
> delicious dinner at one of Ridgecrest's fine Chinese buffets, then 
> returned
> to watch "Stay Alive!" on cable.
>
> Bright and early the next morning, we slept through the alarm! So, instead
> of a liesurely breakfast, we hurried and made it to Trona in time for the
> "Brine Pond" collecting trip.
> This was the one we'd made the trip for! The world famous "Searles Lake
> Pink" halite would soon fill our hands, stinging them where blisters had
> developed in our search for "the Best."
> We met up with John at the Lake, and headed out eagerly onto the icy white
> halite surface crust. The only way to learn where the best halite (a truly
> subjective task!) lies is to break through that crust, a task which raised
> the aforementioned blisters.
> After finding a delightful array of crystal forms, and very little of the
> "Prime" Pink halite, we heard a shout, and saw Kim waving for our 
> attention!
> She'd gotten some help from experienced hands, and had found a deep port
> wine colored brine pond, with several "shelves" of halite crystals. These
> varied in form, but all were a lovely pale to cranberry pink!
>
> The time passed too quickly, and our totes filled too fast! I quickly 
> became
> used to the sting of the brine, and took over from Kim in clearing out the
> pond. As we'd been told, the halite grew in shelves, and the sharp 
> crystals
> could definitely cut! Thankfully, the brine tanned my blisters a deep red
> and kept ANY infection away!
> John wanderd off, but Laura kept her focus, looking far and wide for great
> specimens that would  become the delight of friends and customers alike.
> Meanwhile, Kim & Nancy had consulted with me on transport problems,
> wondering how they'd possibly get they're unexpectedly rich haul of 
> crystals
> home safely. As it turns out, we later heard, they ended up adding an 
> extra
> day to the trip to ship thier bounty home!
>
> Leaving the Lake was truly difficult, especially since we felt like we'd
> just found out what to look for. Kim & Nancy gave us hugs, and said fond
> goodbyes. Isn't it amazing how fast collecting friends become? 
> Reluctantly,
> we carefully packed up for home, and started back across the salt.
>
> With a little foresight, I'd left some room in the totes, and had left a
> tote at the car. On our way back, we collected from abandoned holes, and 
> had
> great luck. We filled every possible corner, and carefully packed for the
> trip home to Fresno.
>
> After slaking our thirst with Pepsi at the gas station conveniently 
> located
> across from the Lake entrance, we wandered back to the show, where we 
> joined
> many folks who'd come out for the dealers, and grinned at others who 
> looked
> as salted and dusty as we. After a filing lunch of Polish Sausage & Frito
> Boats (the 6th & 7th food groups!) and missing our new friends already, we
> wandered amongst the now packing dealers, making connections and some 
> shrewd
> deals, reluctant to call it a weekend.
>
> A tired but uneventful trip back found us planning to return in 2009, and
> discussing who we'd like to bring with us!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thanks again to all of the great folks we met, and all the great folks who
> will read this, and know just how we feel.
>
> Be Well, y'all!
>                        Kris
>                        Lapidary Specialties
>                        Fresno, California, U.S.A.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Nathan Martin <rocknate at gmail.com> 
> wrote:
>
>> Happy last Day of 2008!
>> The snow is falling here in Massachusetts again so its a good time to 
>> think
>> back to the collecting that I was able to do this past year.  I was
>> fortunate enough to collect in CA, MT, KY, IN, OH, CT, NH, ME and MA this
>> year.  Two trips really stand out as being extra special.
>>
>> A)  The first was a trip last July to the Snowbird Mine near the
>> Montana/Idaho border that I made with Lanny Ream while I was out in Idaho
>> on
>> business.  Although the Snowbird Mine was mined for fluorite it is 
>> arguably
>> the best locality in the US to collect decent sized crystals of
>> parisite-(Ce).  It also happens to offer some of the most spectacular 
>> views
>> of any locality I have visited.  The trip was made more interesting by 
>> the
>> fact that we had to shovel snow and clear some small trees off the forest
>> service road leading to the mine to get as close as possible to the mine
>> road.  It was 12 July and we were clearly the first ones to drive in.  I
>> enjoyed the trip so much that I went back again in August on my next trip
>> out there.  I now just may have the best self-collected parisite-(Ce)
>> crystals of anyone in New England although Lanny and others more local to
>> the site certainly have better ones than those I found.  I have a
>> powerpoint
>> presentation of pictures that I took up on my club's website for anyone 
>> who
>> is interested in seeing what the geology and scenery is like up there. 
>> The
>> URL is
>> http://www.bostonmineralclub.org/docs/2008-snowbird/page-01.htm
>>
>> B) The second trip was the Boston Mineral Club fieldtrip that I led to 
>> the
>> Eureka Mine in Marion, KY last October.  This was without a doubt the 
>> most
>> successful collecting trip of the 5 times that I have been to Marion, KY
>> and
>> may well rank as the most successful BMC collecting trip ever.  We 
>> devoted
>> four days of collecting to a fresh exposure of ledge that we paid to have
>> dug by a track hoe that Bill Frazer brought in for us.  We also used
>> a gasoline-powered generator & electric pump to keep the water out of our
>> pit which was 6 feet below the level of Hurricane Creek just 3 feet away
>> and
>> used a 14" diamond blade saw to help work some of the pockets.  It was 
>> wet
>> dirty work but the 15 people that attended this trip all went home very
>> satisfied with the results.
>>
>> On Monday, 13 October, we had our greatest surprise.  I had run a saw cut
>> along the top of some hard ledge so that we could work our way down to 
>> some
>> of the exposed fluorite pockets below.  Ed Norton began working the cut 
>> and
>> broke off a large chunk of of ledge that exposed what we now call the
>> "Lucky
>> 13" pocket.  The first indication that this was no ordinary pocket was 
>> the
>> ~5" sharp, lustrous, doubly-terminated calcite floater that lay loose in
>> the
>> pocket (think Elmwood quality).  Still attached to the wall was the 
>> entire
>> back of the pocket containing four other large calcite crystals.  I
>> carefully ran multiple saw cuts around each edge of the pocket and Ed 
>> began
>> even more carefully working the perimeter cuts to try to extract the 
>> pocket
>> intact.  After a lot of hard work he extracted a roughly 12" x 15" slab
>> with
>> 4 intact calcite crystals.  Both Bill Frazer and a local geologist
>> indicated
>> that these are the finest calcite crystals ever collected from Crittenton
>> County.  Bret Hume of Pittsburgh took home the calcite floater but Ed
>> Norton
>> got the pocket in our split of the specimens and he won first place for
>> best
>> fieldtrip specimen at the annual BMC specimen competition last November.
>>  We
>> also worked numerous fluorite pockets and extracted a number of fantastic
>> specimens.  My best fluorite specimen (a 6" fluorite cluster featuring 
>> one
>> 4" stepped cube crystal also took first place in the best self-collected
>> specimen from the current year.  As great as it was to bring home some 
>> good
>> specimens, the best reward for me was the thrill of seeing the pockets
>> exposed and working with a good group of people to extract the crystals
>> from
>> them.
>>
>> While we were there we also did a night fluorescent dig at the Columbia
>> mine
>> and it too was also a success.  I have a 5 gal bucket full of brightly
>> fluorescent rocks from this dig, including some with 4 colors on a single
>> specimen.  This is wonderful fluorescent material and I encourage any of
>> you
>> who collect fluorescent minerals to consider a trip there.  If you are
>> interested in either fluorite collecting or the fluorescent dig, contact
>> the
>> Ben Clement Mineral Museum in Marion KY to arrange a collecting trip for
>> your club.  The fees from these trips help to keep this struggling museum
>> alive.
>>
>> On the way home my wife and I also did some geode collecting in Indiana 
>> and
>> some fossil collecting at a state park in Ohio.  At the famous 
>> Harrodsburg
>> roadcut on state road 37 in Indiana we stopped so that I could climb up 
>> to
>> a
>> productive geode zone that I had worked last year.  I spent about 30
>> minutes
>> doing some hard work with hammer and chisel to free a 6" geode from the
>> hard
>> Indiana limestone.  Meanwhile my wife looked around the base of the 
>> roadcut
>> and picked up a chunk of rock that had fallen off at some point in time.
>> The rock was rounded on one end and she brought it to me to see if it was 
>> a
>> geode.  Well it was indeed a geode; a 6" geode with a crack already
>> started.  It took only one hammer blow to split it open to expose a very
>> nice quartz crystal interior with a few nicely placed cream-colored
>> dolomite
>> crystals providing an aesthetic accent.  I had worked hard for 30 minutes
>> to
>> get my geode and she picked hers up off the ground!  By the way, her 
>> geode
>> won first place in the self-collected, non-New England category at the 
>> BMC
>> specimen competition.
>>
>> Well those are my storied from 2008.  Please share yours as well!!!
>>
>> best wishes for a safe and happy 2009,
>> May all of your collecting trips be successful with your crystal 
>> specimens
>> terminated & gemmy!
>>
>> Nate Martin
>> Lexington, MA
>>
>>
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