|
I can understand that many of you must be thinking, "not another stinking field trip report about Diamond Hill". But, believe it or not, we ran into something there last weekend that was new to us - large dark-purple amethyst crystals in a clay pocket. We also recovered some more excellent plates and clusters of pale amethyst in the same general area where the dark ones were found. After seeing some pictures of Diamond Hill amethyst that were recently posted on the Georgia Mineral Society's web site, I felt compelled to head back to Diamond Hill to try my hand at figuring out where the material was found. I knew that the dark purple quartz was recovered from somewhere in the new pit, but where in the new pit was the question. From digging there previously, I had one of my "feelings" on where to dig, so Chrissy, Opal and I showed up bright and early on Saturday morning to test my theory.
We planned to spend both Saturday and Sunday at Diamond Hill. So, rather than make
the 4-hour round trip home and back, we set up camp at the mine. The weather forecast called for
high winds for the weekend, so we opted to leave our pop-up camper at home and to sleep in the back
of the Dodge. The temperature Saturday night would get down into the mid-thirties, so we ended up
getting a little bit cold overnight and we were somewhat cramped in the back of the truck - mostly
because Opal is such a bed hog. We will probably only sleep in the back of the truck again in
a pinch.
I spent two days digging a monster hole in the newest big pit. Chrissy spent much of her time prospecting and scratching at various other places on the property while I continued to move major quantities of rock and dirt in my quest to hit the mother lode. She would stop by from time to time to see how I was doing and to get out of the wind that was howling on Saturday with gusts up to 40 mph. When Opal wasn't napping in the sun, she stayed busy keeping track of both Chrissy and me, and by thrashing every fallen tree limb that she could find.
By mid-afternoon on Saturday, I dug myself into an area that was rich with vugs and pockets that contained what appeared to be milky to translucent quartz covered with manganese and iron oxides. Ordinarily, I would have been happy to find this type of material, but I had already dragged home a bunch of this stuff in preceding weeks. I set all these specimens aside and continued to work the hole up and down trying to find the right horizon for amethyst. It wasn't long after that I discovered a large seam pocket that contained what appeared to be amethyst. I say "appeared" because the plates and clusters were covered with a thick coating of brown iron oxide that masked the quality of the crystals. However, I could tell on some of the broken edges and by the blocky crystal shapes that there was amethyst in the mix. I assumed the amethyst was the pale lilac-colored variety similar to what I had previously recovered nearby. I ended up pulling out numerous plates, big and small, that would turn out to be amethyst. The following pictures show the same specimen before and after cleaning in hot oxalic acid. The amethyst sure likes to hide at Diamond Hill.
Click on each specimen picture to enlarge
Click on each specimen picture to enlarge
Click on each specimen picture to enlarge
|
by 4" tall. I also found a single 3" long crystal hiding out in the same pocket. I noticed that
three of the points on the larger crystal were slightly chipped but the damage was not caused
by my actions as I had been exceedingly careful removing it. I surmise that the crystal must have
been chipped by the force of a trackhoe bucket as it was apparent that machine digging had
previously been performed nearby. A clay pocket generally contains other quartz and rock fragments
that can cause crystal tip damage if enough force is applied to it.
