Machine Dig Eureka Mine May 2015

Posted on May 5, 2015 by jwj

For the past ten years, I have joined with a small group of rockhound friends from all over the country and performed a machine dig at the Eureka Fluorite Mine in western Kentucky…for a couple of reasons. Our main goal has always been to help the folks at the BE Clement Mineral Museum, by digging out the old mine pit, which provides safe digging opportunities for rockhounds of all ages for the remainder of the warm season. By doing so, we remove alot of heavy silt and mud from many of the digging areas, mud that would require hours of hand digging to remove to even get close to the crystals…believe me, we have been there and have done the hand digging ourselves in the first couple of years before we even found out we could use a machine to remove it…we literally wore ourselves out but the rewards were well worth the efforts, too. There are some that would criticize us for what we did, call us opportunists and other things, and yet, given the chance, they would have done the same thing albeit for different reasons than ours.

It is becoming increasingly difficult each year to find places to go and collect rocks and minerals, a passion of mine since I was about eight years old, a passion shared by thousands of people worldwide. The folks who operate the mineral museum at Marion, Kentucky, share that same passion and have opened their hearts to thousands of rockhounds for the past ten years, sharing the passion as well as their making several old mines available to dig into to find buried treasures. Many of the mines in this area of western Kentucky date back to the 1800`s and early 1900`s and were originally operated and mined for zinc and silver, then fluorite later on. The Eureka Mine has always been known for beautiful deep purple and yellow fluorite cubes, occasionally a rockhound will find small lead cubes and sphalerite attached to them as well as smithsonite in a beach sand color, and we have found pockets of greenockite as well. Several years ago, the board members of the Clement Mineral Museum decided to make some of the old mines in the area, available to rockhounds on certain dates each year…that expanded to one public dig per month from April to October and an annual gem show and dig the first weekend of June. Their efforts paid off and thousands of rockhounds in the past ten to fifteen years have greatly benefitted from it…it has become one of my favorite places to visit a few times a year. My group normally performs a machine dig early in the springtime, however this year we were not able to locate a trackhoe operator that was available to work with, so we had to wait until one became available, and that was last weekend.

After driving down and scouting the exploratory digs performed in April, I checked with my group to see if anyone was interested in a machine dig for May this year, after Bill told me that he could find us a trackhoe operator to work with. Several in my group had begun contacting me back in January and February, indicating that they were interested in traveling to the Eureka Mine again to look for fluorite and asked if I would be interested as well…I definitely was and so I set about finding out who was still on board with the idea. It turned out that several were going to be unavailable the first weekend in May, so I had to recruit a few new guys to join me…Alan Schaeffer is a good friend from the Memphis Club MAGS that I am also a part of, and had indicated to me on my way home from my spring trip in Arkansas, that he would love to join me on my next dig there, so I naturally let him know about it and he said yes. Jeff Deere, one of my good rockhunting friends from northern Georgia, also was on board but was tied up that weekend so he found a great replacement in Mark Bishop, and soon there were three of us…Alan found another guy to join us, MAGS member Marc Mueller, and we were set. I let Bill Frazer know that the four of us would be down there ready to go Saturday morning.

I again drove down there after my shift ended at work early Friday morning, and arrived around noon at the museum. I visited with Tina and Sherry for about an hour and then drove out to make sure I had the right key to the gate…and even though the gate was wide open, it turned out my key wouldn`t open the lock, so I returned to the museum and found board member Russ there…Russ also works full time in geology related work and accompanied me back to the gate to resolve the lock issues. We drove on down to the mine to make sure no one was down there trespassing and looked around a bit…passing the trackhoe parked on top of the hill….

….they had a torrential rain shower a few days before and there were cubes and hints of purple laying all over the tailing piles and the bench, as well as pieces of fluorite left by the group there in April…some nice stuff even, which greatly surprised me, but as Russ said, they must have found some really super nice stuff if they left this material behind. Needless to say, I was even more ready and rarin to go the next morning.

As I drove over to the hotel at Kuttawa, I passed through some beautiful flower fields at Fredonia….

…I had never seen these flowers down there before, having never been there before in May, so they were quite a sight to see and a local young man there told me they were ground up for canola oil, so most folks called them canola flowers he said.

I drove on over to the Days Inn and got checked in and then took a nice nap….woke up in time to have supper with Alan when he arrived and checked in. Marc arrived from Memphis soon after and we walked next door to the Oasis Southwest Grill and Steakhouse, one of the best steakhouses in the country in my humble opinion. I eat there all the time, food is absolutely great and the service isn`t bad either. Steve, the General Manager there, is one of those guys that truly cares about the quality of food and your dining experience, he moves around the huge dining areas and checks on everyone…and if something is wrong, he does his best to fix it. Alan found that out that night….I ordered my usual, one inch thick grilled pork chops with a bbq glaise on top…he ordered the eight ounce filet mignon medium rare…as soon as he cut into it, he knew it wasn`t right, overcooked…so they took it back and left him with his veggies. He soon had consumed the veggies and they were nice enough to bring more with the new steak, which now was undercooked…this time Steve came over to check with him, offered him another steak cooked right this time…they left him with the undercooked one, and said they would be back in eight minutes with yet another steak…I know how he felt, been there myself before and he was hungry, so he wound up eating both the undercooked one and then the properly cooked one, and got two steaks for the price of one. My chops, as usual, were cooked to perfection. Marc had appetizers, having ate before he left home. We all retired early in anticipation of the dig the next day, Marc camped out on the lake nearby.

I was up early Saturday morning, expecting Mark Bishop to arrive around 6:30, as he decided to leave Georgia about 3 am and drive up thru Nashville…and as it was, he arrived about 30 min early and we were able to have a short breakfast there at the hotel, Marc joining us soon after. After a short stop at the donut shop in Eddyville, we were headed to the mine to meet up with Bill Frazer, who arrived there just ahead of us and unlocked the gate. We visited with Bill for a few minutes and then heard the trackhoe fire up on top of the hill…while waiting for the trackhoe operator to walk it down the hill, I took some photos of the new pit area as the guys walked around surface collecting….

Pretty soon, we heard the trackhoe come walking down the hill…Bill had told me the operator would have to veer off the road into the field on the other side and cross the creek at a pasture crossing, so I walked over and opened the gate for him….

…and then walked it over to the mine where he stopped and introduced himself as Danny, said he was looking for Mr. Johnson, lol….

…we lined out digging plans out for him and he got started right away…first order of business was to try and retrieve the pump hoseline that was mired in the mud, for the museum, who had been unable to remove it by manpower….

..and as soon as he got that completed, we had him work on the new pit area, removing some mud and cleaning it out in general to make it easier on us as well as any other diggers to find more crystals…the next three photos were taken by Mark Bishop and shows Danny digging into the new pit area….

…while I point out the fault area fluorite at the base of the bench to Alan…

..pretty soon it was apparent to us that we needed Danny to turn over the bench so we could see if there were any better material underneath….first photo by Mark Bishop….

…we then checked the bench area for cubes while Danny did some work with the tailing piles behind us. I then had him dig into the tailings on the north end of the pit and stir them up a bit for future collectors too….

…he then walked it back over to the south side and cleaned out the bench pit wall on the road side for us….

…there was a mudhole down there that turned out to be extremely deeper in mud than what we thought, at least on the wall side, while on the bench side it was maybe ten inches deep at most….you can see it in the light colored muddy spot in the photo below….

..and here Danny is removing about four feet of mud from that one little spot alone….photo by Mark Bishop….

…as the guys were digging into the overturned bench area and pulling some nice cubes out…I walked up the road with Danny and the trackhoe and had him make an exploratory cut across the other area across the road….

..during this cut, he came across some massive orange colored fluorite, there were no cubes at all, just massive spar, but it sure was pretty. Danny lowered me down in the bucket once again…I have to say it was smoother than any elevator ride I have ever been on and I felt completely safe too…I pulled some pieces of it out of the wall and we found some in the tailings above too. Afterwards, I had him stir up some of the old exploratory piles laying around the forest floor near the logging road, and then we paid him and thanked him for his immense help to us.

We divided up our finds and Mark Bishop headed home to Georgia….while Alan and Marc and I continued to dig around and find some good material before wearing out about an hour later. After another great dinner at Oasis, Marc headed home to Memphis, and Alan and I stayed over and then Alan headed home in the morning and I drove over to MFQ to check out the quarry there…check out my next story on that part of the trip….I pulled out the biggest poker chip cluster I have ever found there. 🙂

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Eureka Mine Scouting Trip April 2015

Posted on May 5, 2015 by jwj

I drove down the day before their first scheduled open dig in April, leaving work on Friday morning at sunrise….

….and boy what a beautiful sunrise it was…..

….arriving in Marion by noon. After visiting with Tina and Sherry at the museum, and taking them some goodies to sell in their museum gift shop to further help them in their efforts, I went with Bill out to the mine to see what they had already dug out…finding that Bill had dug into the older pit area on the south side and over to the old logging road. They had made an exploratory trench cut in October of 2014 and a large vug of beautiful fluorite plates were discovered in the bottom of that cut at the very back wall of it….

…..so this dig expanded upon that effort to locate even more purple, as Bill stated to me. He had the operator stop digging as soon as they started seeing purple….here is how it looked when I scouted it in early April….

…and found some pockets of purple fluorite all over the place in the new pit area, most of it centered around this bench left in the middle….

…none of that was really spectacular looking, but did indicate that there was some good stuff to be found in that general area, it was down at the vein or fault level, which is where we have found it in years past. There were also several old bottles found during this dig in October, like this snuff bottle I located in the tailing piles…

…and on up the old logging road that runs along the mine, Bill had some exploratory digging done, looking for the fault that runs alongside the logging road, as indicated on the old maps…..

….and where I found a small plate of nice cubes that morning….

…there were some other cubes laying around in that same area, again giving me good indicators that more could be found there. I walked back down to the new pit area….

…and climbed down into the pit area to do some looking around…finding a few pockets of cubes and digging out a couple of basketball sized chunks with some cubes on them as well….

…I decided to stick around and see if I could help the rockhounds the next morning at the open dig. I arrived at the museum about 8 am and visited with Tina again, who told me that Bill was tied up with some work and asked if I could provide the group with a safety talk and then lead them out to the mine…we stepped outside and I gave them some history on the mine and then they followed me through town and out to the mine. After I pointed out some good areas to check out, based on what I had observed the day before, they scattered out and began digging….

…and this group went up the road to the other spot where I found the plate of cubes the day before….

….I was up there when a gal pulled out a huge plate of cubes after digging down two feet into the pile to liberate it….let me tell you she went home one happy camper….I walked back down to the new pit area and found this group on break…

I left there about 1 pm that day and headed home and heard later in the week from Tina that they had found some nice stuff after I left…the young couple in the photo above were sitting in a prime spot and should have pulled out some nice plates. The couple across in front of them, were from the St Louis area, not far from where I work even, and the guy by the green bucket is from Effingham and on the volunteer fire department there…there was a family from Ohio that liked to go flint hunting too.

Arkansas in the Springtime

Posted on April 10, 2015 by jwj

Ray Roth called me back in February and told me that he was getting tired of the winter blahs and weather and would like to meet me at Hot Springs in April. Ray was going to Texas for a metal detecting treasure trip and visit some friends there in early March, but figured he would be back and ready for Arkansas by the first of April. I was able to secure enough vacation time at work to get nearly a week off and we coordinated our schedules to arrive there on the last day of March. Initially, my parents were going to ride down with Missy and I, they were homesick and wanted to see their birthplaces and visit with family and friends there, however some unplanned things came up that prevented them from going with us. My Mom and Dad were both raised in the same area of western Arkansas on dairy farms, in dairy farm country, an area that I am also very fond of.

This time of year I am normally down in western Kentucky with friends helping the staff of the Mineral Museum at Marion to expand the collecting opportunities at the Eureka Mine, enabling rockhounds to go there and dig more easily throughout the remainder of the warm season to find beautiful fluorite treasures. This spring tho, the staff was unable to track down any machinery to assist us in our efforts and we had to delay those plans…that enabled me to meet up with Ray at Hot Springs instead. I contacted my buddy Adam Lagaveen and let him know I would be driving down there on the 31st and he said he would be ready to meet up again and provide me with some nice stuff and more info on the Mt Ida area. Adam is a super nice guy and a wealth of information on quartz crystal collecting in that area, as well as a very talented craftsman of Native American artifacts…you should see the Indian knives and arrowheads that he has crafted from raw materials like rainbow obsidian and novaculite in various colors on his FB page at Adam Lageveen`s Lithic Art…truly beautiful stuff !! Adam was also raised in the area that my parents are from and knows some of my second cousins. Combined with the info he had provided back in the fall, I had researched several locations to check out this time and was looking forward to seeing what additional information he had for me.

Missy and I got on the road the morning of Tuesday, March 31st, at an early hour, down around Springfield by the time the sun came up over the horizon. By the time we pulled into Fayetteville, it was time for a break…I had called a young lady that I had talked to online a few weeks prior, she wanted to sell part of her rock and mineral collection, so we agreed to meet near Razorback University. She had some nice crystals in her collection and after selecting some and coming to an agreement on a fair price, I wrapped them up and gave her a few nice dogtooths from Missouri….here are a few of them….

We headed west to Sallisaw on Hwy 40, passing through Van Buren on the way, and we observed some recent storm damage, a tornado had ripped through there a week prior and heavily damaged some motels along the interstate…weather that we were really hoping to avoid on this trip.

We arrived in Sallisaw twenty minutes later and drove over to Adam`s house…he had some tubs of quartz crystals laid out for me to take a look at…and as we were putting Missy into his fenced in backyard, I noticed several flats of an old mineral collection that he had recently picked up…looked like some spectacular pieces of malachite with some calcite druse on some of them, and then there were some calcite crystals with a vibrant blue colored glaze all over them, with an iron ore type matrix on many of them…the blue coloring glaze was a turquoise blue shade, that I was unable to figure out…but they sure were captivating and beautiful to look at…

…and some that looked like malachite too….

….I picked up a couple of the flats of this beautiful stuff from Adam as well as some quartz he no longer wanted and he gave me some info on some places to collect fossils in Scott County near my grandpa`s farm and the Mt Ida area both, before we headed on south. I decided to stop by the fossil location first since it was on the way and so we headed south from Sallisaw to get there about an hour later…which by that time, the temps were up in the high 80`s, so I just stopped by to photograph it and then drove on down to Hot Springs. I had planned to get into HS by 4 pm and meet up with a new rockhound cause I had some flats of Missouri and Kentucky minerals and crystals to give to him, help him with his growing collection. I had also planned to stop and visit with Faith and Bill, the former caretakers at Miller Mtn Mine, now retired and living just east of Mt Ida on Hwy 270, but wasn`t going to have time to do that today, so I called them to let them know we would get back up there later and visit with them. Missy and I arrived in HS about 5 pm and drove over to the condo that I rented from April, who I had rented from on my fall trip down there, too.

This time we were staying in the downstairs condo and it turned out to be just as nice as the upstairs unit…however it was def warm and spring, as there were several bumblebees hovering right around the front door…at first I thought they were hornets…I called April to see if she knew about it and she said she would call the Maintenance guy and see if he could come spray for them. He did show up later and sprayed but apparently the spray didnt have any effect on them, cause they were there every warm day, only leaving when it cooled down on Saturday and Sunday. Turned out they were bumblebees tho and the biggest ones I had ever seen, too…guess they grow them big down there…I didnt let it bother me much, was there to enjoy myself and put it out of my mind soon after, just had to be aware of them when you came and went.

I met up with Justin soon after we arrived at the condo and started handing off several flats to him…including some dogtooth crystals from the secret spot and Eminence both, as well as some pretty fluorite pieces and some Doe Run Viburnum Trend specimens too…his eyes just kept getting wider and bigger as I handed him flat after flat of goodies. I invited him to have supper with Ray and I soon after Ray got into town and called to let me know he was there…Ray stayed at the Long Island Lake Resort on the longer island south of my location. We decided to meet up and go to the Italian restaurant in the plaza across from the Hot Springs Mall…Justin had heard about it as well and wanted to check it out too….April had recommended it when we were there in the fall. We had a good meal there, but I couldn`t believe the price for one glass of sweet Reisling wine…it was $ 9.25 a glass…geez, I could have bought three bottles of it for that price….Ray was astounded as well. I had the spagetti and the meatballs were the size of baseballs…only been to one other Italian restaurant where they were bigger, one in Florida had them the size of softballs !! It wasn`t as good as my Mom`s homecooked spagetti and meatballs but pretty good after a long drive down there. Justin promised to stay in touch and hoped to be able to go with us over the weekend days but had to work each night til 5 pm, so our day trips would not work out well for him…we hoped he could join us on the weekend trips.

The next morning I woke up from the couch in the living room, having crashed there after the news…the sliding glass door was open and the waves outside the condo put me right to sleep….I shot the beautiful sunrise the next morning…

As Ray and I were having breakfast at Mc D`s and were gonna head up to Twin Creek Mine and check it out…I called Bill and Faith to see if they were home…Bill said they were waiting on some carpenters but would park their white van out by the road so we knew which driveway to turn into…we arrived about 25 min later and found them in a nice brown split level ranch home with a two car covered carport on the east end of the house, on the north side of 270, one mile west of the Garland County line…we passed this beautiful waterfall right across from the old Monte Cristo Store and Rock Shop just before the County line…

….that waterfall is hard to see in the photo and I wanted to walk down there and get a better photo of it, without all the trees in the way, but there is a house on the hill right above it and its private property, so didn`t take any chances. The old Monte Cristo featured a gas station, store inside and they sold quartz crystals on those big racks in front…here is a link to the history of it in its heyday http://www.city-data.com/forum/arkansas/878079-exploring-arkansas-60.html

Bill looked soooo much better than the last time I had seen him, which was at Miller Mtn Mine before they retired, he was recovering from surgery then and just looked worn out…he looked more like a younger and vibrant Bill this time and Faith looked great too…they were setting up their crystal shop in their home and doing very well. We visited with them a while and then got a basket of quartz each…their baskets are ten times better quality than any baskets you will find elsewhere, hands down better than any baskets at Miller Mtn Mine, too…the last one I bought at Miller Mtn last fall was half full of clay dirt and the teeny tiniest crystals you had ever seen…almost needed a magnifying glass just to find them…and several plates of sandstone with nothing on them !! Wont find me going back there for awhile and certainly not buying anymore baskets there either !! If you want some good baskets, stop and see Faith and Bill at their new shop in the Joplin area east of Mt Ida, they are two miles east of the turn off to Mountain Harbor Resort and great folks to visit with, can fill you in on the history of the area too. My basket was full of golden healers and some smokey plates too. I was very happy with my basket this time. 🙂

From their house, we drove on over to Twin Creek Mine…to reach it you turn on to Logans Gap Road, next to Judy`s Crystals shop and go to the top of the mountain, about a four or five mile drive…right after you cross a single lane bridge on that road, you will come to a y and just stay to the right, then you come to another y and again stay to the right and that is Collier Springs Road, while Logan Gap Rd continues up the hill to the left and paved. Collier Springs Road is a gravel lane that is a bit narrower….its a good road, not rough, but not real smooth either, average Forest Service Road….a few miles down that road and you will start up a big hill, go past the first gate that directs you to the next gate and then you come to the entrance to Twin Creek Mine….

…wish I could tell you that this road is smoother, but it`s not and is a one lane, so pray that you don`t meet anyone on it as you are driving down the hill to the mine, cause it is basically a one way track…I was glad we met no one going in or out cause I sure didn`t want to be the one backing up or down that hill….

…the signs on the road say slow…it`s because it is a bumpy road, not smooth at all, but just take it easy and you can make it in a car or truck……luckily it wont take you long to get there…and it opens up to the digging area at the bottom of the hill…you can see massive quartz in the woods on both sides of the road there too.

Ray and I grabbed our tools and met up with the hostess for the day, Lisa, who outlined the boundaries after we paid our fees, then we gathered our tools and headed for the wall…here is Ray heading back up the hill to the spot with his hammer….

….we met a couple next to us named Ed and Lisa, with their son, who dug up some really nice crystals from the road near the entrance to the digging area. We worked the wall near them and I soon began pulling some small clusters out of the tree roots while they were doing some heavy digging into the wall looking for a good vein to work…

…don`t know if they ever found one, tho….it was a little warm that day and I was wearing one of my long sleeve pullovers…Hostess Lisa kept coming up to check on me, she was just sure I was going to keel over with heat exhaustion. I told her I had plenty of water with me and was just fine…besides I was working in the treeroots and didn`t want my arms all scratched up..she did a good job of checking on everyone while we were there…here she is checking on some other diggers near the bottom of the slope….

….here is what the digging area looks like from the top of the hill where we were back to the entrance…

and vice versa….

…it was supposed to rain and storm by 3 pm, so we decided to take off about 2:30 pm…I did not want to be up on that mountain with lightning popping all over the place. I had a bag full of small clusters which cleaned up pretty nicely, plus I was able to chip out a nice smokey quartz plate that was in between a couple of sandstone layers, too. I was exhausted and ready for a nap on my return to Hot Springs…Ray decided to stop off at Burl`s Smokehouse on the way back and get a smoked meat sandwich, and I kept on truckin toward HS….by supper time, storm clouds started rolling in across the lake….

…and soon after, rain started coming down in sheets…..

…but by dark, it had cleared off and only a few raindrops here and there remained….Missy and I headed up the street to get some ice cream at the homemade ice cream store, and I took these photos of the wet streets and lights near the mall….

..it was another nice night, so again I left the door open and bunked on the comfy couch, and again the sound of the waves put me out soon after the news ended….we awoke to a cloudy sunrise….

After breakfast at Mc Donalds, we decided to drive down to Glenwood and check out the Pigeon Roost Mine tailings…I had been told that smokey quartz, calcite, and witherite could be found there…we found some pyrite there and lots of slate there, but nothing else…it was an old zinc mine that had apparently been pretty picked over….

…the next photo shows how enormous this place is…above the top of the rock is yet another pit and then you climb to those trees way up above….

…from here, we decided to drive up to the Oden area and check out the old Clear Creek Mine after hearing so many good things about it. I followed the directions I had to it, but when we arrived, I wasn`t sure if we were on the right road or not….it was lined with quartz but no mention of that had been made by my friend who gave me the info on the mine. We pulled up to a gate that was closed in a small wide spot on the road…we could hear machinery operating at the top of the hill on the other side of the gate….I told Ray I was going back to the main road where I had a signal, and call my buddy and make sure we were on the right road…I didn`t drive far before I met an suv coming down the road…I pulled over for it and waved the driver down. It was a young lady and I asked her if we were on the right road after explaining what we were doing down there. She was on her way up to the top of the hill on the other side of creek from the gate, where her husband was operating the machine we heard, and said she would check and then return with an answer for us…true to her word, she returned in about ten minutes and told us we were not on the right road, that the mine we were seeking was over the mountain to the west of us. Not knowing where to check to the west, we decided to drive to Mt Ida and have lunch. We stopped at the Dairyette cause I knew they had great burgers there years ago, plus good shakes and malts. It was beginning to heat up, so I took my food and headed east as I didn`t want to leave her in the truck any longer than necessary. Ray stayed and ate his lunch there before heading back to Hot Springs.

Having the rest of the day free, Missy and I drove over to Gulpha Gorge and Lake DeSoto to check out the spring color and the old powerhouse with its waterwheel, plus the waterfalls nearby….

…and very little color at Gulpha Gorge, where I am more used to shooting fall color than spring color, however I would have thought there would def be more than a few redbud trees in bloom here, I only saw spotty dogwood trees in bloom…..

Later in the evening, I met one of my local buddies at Colton`s Steakhouse and enjoyed a good steak dinner. The next morning was a bit chilly, so my sunrise images show a bit of blur, however there was a bit more color in the clouds, just out of view to the left side….

Ray had decided to meet up with local friends and go metal detecting and fishing today, and I was meeting up with local friends for some hiking later in the day. By mid morning, Missy and I were driving out to check on a local waterfall and to check out some other areas as well.

It was a bit windy in the morning, but cleared off my mid day….Ray told me the next day that he had only lasted about an hour out there in the wind fishing. By that evening, tho, I had some down with a severe stomach ache and didn`t feel like doing much of anything, sipping on a seven up which helped to relieve much of my discomfort later on. By morning, I was feeling a bit better.

After a beautiful sunrise on Saturday morning….

…I drove up to Scott County to meet up with Virgil Richards to look for fossils at a location that Adam had told me about last fall. Ray decided to remain in Hot Springs, so Missy and I were on the road shortly after 8 am…a nice crisp morning cooler than the prior days by at least twenty degrees. We arrived and met up with Virgil by 11 am and drove over to a reclaimed coal mining area nearby….

I had stopped off here to check it out after leaving Adam`s house on Tuesday and let Virgil know about it on Friday…he decided he needed an outing so we decided to meet up at Bates about 11 am. We drove over to the high wall….

….. and checked the pit below where we found just a few fern and leaf fossils in slate….it`s a well known area that has been heavily picked over…..

…and some were in a mix of organic matter that was petrified and colorful that reminded me of petrified dino poop…..

…some of the pieces I picked up crumbled to the touch, due to the exposure to the elements and some stayed intact…I hope to return and check this site again, paying more attention to the organic matter next time, where the fossils were definitely intact and stronger, plus more colorful…this area reminded me of the Mazon Creek Fossil area in Illinois. We lasted for a few hours there, the temps began rising and by the time we finished, it was quite warm…as Virgil turned to head west back into Oklahoma, we noticed smoke rising not too far from us, signs of a possible forest fire that was quickly gaining ground with a brisk wind driving it….

On the way back to Hot Springs, I stopped off at Burl`s Smokehouse and picked up some chips and a couple of sandwiches, deciding it would be best to eat on the light side for a few days and see if that helped. This is a place I have passed by on several occasions and wondered how good it was…Ray liked it and I had some local friends that stopped there last year on one of their trips to Hot Springs and really enjoyed it as well…inside I found a neat old rustic building where they make sandwiches to order…they have chips and wines there, too, and the biggest home made cinnamon rolls I have ever seen…had my stomach been stronger, I prob would have bought one to eat later on.

Missy and I continued on to HS and made arrangements to visit one additional site in the morning. It was a full moon that evening and I stepped out on the balcony to shoot a few images of it illuminating Lake Hamilton….

By the next morning, my stomach felt a little better and I decided to try the one last site, before Missy and I headed home. The sunrise was a cloudy one, but there was def some red in the skies to the east…that should have been a tip off for us….

The weather forecast the night before indicated that the skies would be cloudy but the rains would hold off til 11 am, so we figured we could get a couple of hours of digging in. We hit rain before we arrived at the location at 8:30, and after talking with the owners for a bit, we drove up the hill and began checking out the areas near where we had dug on our previous trip there. For the first hour, Ray and I turned over many pieces of massive quartz, before we started finding a few smaller clusters of crystals. I then decided to check out another area closeby and soon found a larger cluster of bigger crystals…by this time it was raining more steadily and I decided it was time to stop for the day. We packed up and headed out, and soon Missy and I were headed up I-30 toward Memphis, where we planned to stop and visit with Matthew and Carolyn Lybanon, rockhound friends in the MAGS Club. Matthew is the newletter editor and Carolyn is the Hospitality Director. Carolyn called as I was driving thru Benton and told me not to eat anything, that they planned to have a late lunch and that Missy and I would be joining them for dinner. As I entered the Memphis area, I discovered they have quite a bit of construction going on with their highways….

…..reminded me of the mess involving I-64 in St Louis a couple of years ago….I passed a unique structure as soon as we crossed the mighty Mississippi River, a pyramid shaped building emblazoned on the highway side with Bass Pro Shops on it….

…..and soon enough we were pulling into the Lybanon driveway.

We had a great time and good food and talked about rocks alot…they showed me their collection and I showed them what I had found and shared some of my finds with them…Carolyn had made me a beautiful oval shaped window made up of stained glass and some pieces of fossils and crystals as well…it is displayed on a metal stand and was quite pretty. They also gave me a huge ammonite that they found down in the Denton, Texas area on one of their fossil excursions down there.

After a nice two hour visit with them, Missy and I got back on the road and headed home via Hwy 63, which I discovered soon after leaving Jonesboro, was another hotbed of construction activity…Arkansas crews appear to be attempting to widen the roadway for several miles to the north. I spotted several sunbeams near Jonesboro…..

We arrived home safe and sound by midnight and decided to lock the truck and leave the unpacking to the next day.

Here are some of the quartz crystals I brought back with me….some beautiful stuff….

…and some I found in the basket I purchased from Bill and Faith…..

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

More Red Druse at MFQ

Posted on April 10, 2015 by jwj

Two weeks ago, I had a call from a good friend who told me that there would soon be some activity going on at MFQ. I had a day off coming up so decided to drive down there and see if I could find anything nice, before my anticipated trip to Arkansas, as I wanted to get some good stuff to take with me and give to a new rockhound friend that I had found on Facebook. Missy and I got up early and drove down there on Saturday morning, spotting deer and wild turkeys along the way, always a good sign of things to come. When we arrived, we had a pleasant surprise, finding not only one recent blast pile in our favorite coved wall area, but also the original wall on the left as you enter……

I decided to check out the original section of wall first, and found one chunk of poker chips at the bottom of the pile in relatively great shape. I then drove on over to the east wall to check and see what was left of the blast pile there and see if the wall was anymore exposed than the last time I was there….and as it turned out, it was alot more exposed, one section standing out and appeared to be full of pockets….

…there was also a pile of huge boulders there and one contained a huge vug of calcite crystals…

…naturally I couldn`t just walk by without stopping to look and photograph it, but I kept on walking toward that area that appeared to have multiple pockets and boy did it. I worked that area for at least two hours, filling bag after bag full of beautiful druse plates and many of those plates had big flaky poker chip crystals attached….

starting in the pocket on the left above and then moving to that pocket on the right…..

…which just got better and better…..

..then I spotted yet another pocket and moved over to it….

…and filled yet another bag on this one alone, as it contained some nice dogtooths….

…and then I moved over to the coved wall…

…..have to say I was a bit disappointed as it did not produce very much of anything other than a few small plates of poker chips down at the ground level. However, I did climb up the pile and along the wall, found some great pockets full of BEAUTIFUL and VIBRANT red druse pieces…filled at least two bags of these beauties….

…I was very happy with the beauties I pulled out of the east wall pockets, which is where I recommended my buddy Ian collect at when he told me that he would be there on the morning I planned to be heading home from Arkansas…here are some of those beauties….

…it made for a great morning there…collected enough of those beauties to fill at least ten flats…if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Pleasant Surprise Found at MFQ Saturday…

Posted on February 12, 2015 by jwj

Missy and I arrived at MFQ mid morning Saturday, driving down to check out the clearing activity that was going on per my buddy Jim, who I called Thursday evening on my way to work. The forecast was for a very nice warm and sunny day, temps in the 70`s, but by the time we arrived at 9:30, it was still cool enough to require my blue sweatjacket. As we pulled into the upper parking area from the highway, I spotted the clearing activity on top of the hill….

…I then looked toward the back center wall, however I was unable to see the back wall due to a very high pile of rock crushed into chunks suitable for support and driveways….as we drove around this huge pile of crushed rock, I came upon a nicely sloped pile of untouched goodies blasted down from the upper bench…needless to say I was estatic because my buddy Jim was unaware of any recent activity, most likely due to his view from the roadway being blocked as mine was, by that huge pile of crushed rock. The pile was wide enough that it required four photos to show it….

…after quickly letting Missy out, I changed into my boots, grabbed my mini mattox, and made a fast walk around the front edge…it was obvious the only thing workers had done since bringing the wall down, was to clean up the front edges with the dozer. I didn`t find anything pretty out on the front edges, so I grabbed a bag and headed for the back wall, as I was able to spot some pockets from the truck. Within moments, I had spotted several nice druse pockets like this one….

…and from this one pocket came some very nice druse pieces like these two guys….

…after filling one bag full of wrapped druse plates, I moved on down the wall to the next several pockets, many of them similar but a few had some nice poker chips attached as well…as you can see from the next images, this wall was full of pockets…..look below the green line….

…and at one spot along the wall, I looked up, as I normally do, and spotted some beautiful black druse pockets way up there…about fifteen feet higher than I could possibly begin to reach….

…the next pockets I had to climb up to the top of the stepladder to access….right under that green/blue line….

…the material in front facing me, was loose, so after pulling it back with my mini mattox, it looked like this…

…I was cleaning away the loose stuff, looking for an opening to a pocket and oila !! one appeared….

…pulling a few nice plates of druse and poker chips out of this opening, resulted in finding yet another pocket right behind it….

…and pretty soon, I had yet another bag full of very pretty druse and poker chip plates. I went back to the truck to get yet another bag and to check on Missy. I no sooner returned and was down in the dip along the back wall….

….searching for yet another pocket that could possibly turn into four pockets like this one did, when my buddy Jim showed up to visit….I walked down the pile toward my truck to meet him about halfway….

…and where we both came to a stop to talk, I looked down and spotted some beautiful pieces of black druse and some black dogtooth crystals just laying all over…

…what a great meeting spot Jim selected to talk to me at…I owe him big time I would say. After we talked abit, he left to go work on cutting some more wood, and I looked around a bit more, picked up several more black and brown dogtooth crystals, and druse pieces, filling at least two bags full. I then looked to my left and spotted these two huge boulders with vugs of poker chip crystals inside each one….

…I decided to take a water break, and then returned with more wraps and another bag, as well as my hammer and chisel, and proceeded to get a good workout in, removing some nice clusters of big gray colored poker chip crystals from these vugs….

…and then I returned to the wall, where I found a few more pockets that contained those nice gemmy plates of druse and poker chips. I filled two more bags, my last ones even, of these plates. I then walked around the back side of the pile where I located some nice gemmy green poker chips, some with dogtooths, and some were small and some large yard rocks style….and set them up on a nice flat boulder….I ran out of steam about this time, and loaded them up last before heading for home….sure was a nice day.

Feb 23rd…..Due to two winter storms the last two weeks, I was unable to get out and hunt, so as promised, here are some of the dogtooths and druse pieces all cleaned up…..

MFQ on New Years Day

Posted on February 3, 2015 by jwj

What better way to spend New Years Day than go rockhunting ??? I couldn`t think of a better way to spend the day, specially since I was off the night before, and could get some good rest before making the long drive down to hunt. Missy and I woke up and headed down early, photographing the dawn`s early light on the way down there….

…Missy and I arrived and found the air a bit crisp at that time of the morning, and from where I parked near what was left of the blast pile, I could again see pockets up high, so I grabbed my stepladder and began exploring…..

…this first pocket above and below, working out to be a very good one. I filled two bags with beautiful wrapped plates of calcite druse with poker chip blades that sparkle and shine in the sunlight….

…more of these puppies….

…and of course while I was cleaning those pockets out…there were a couple of smaller ones on either side of that large pocket…Missy was content to roam around the quarry and check things out….

…we headed home about 4 pm, with four bags full of goodies. all in all a great New Years Day and great start to rockhounding in 2015.

Large Dogtooth Chunks Found At Secret Spot

Posted on February 3, 2015 by jwj

And while I am adding photos, let me add some photos of a few larger chunks of bubbly druse with big yellow dogtooth crystals spread out all over them….pulled from a few of the larger pockets I found this year…..

Novaculite Collected at Magnet Cove

Posted on February 3, 2015 by jwj

I thought I would show you some of the pretty colors in the Novaculite that I collected at the quarry near Magnet Cove back in November on my fall trip. Mr. Parker has a great variety of material there and in many colors and blends of colors too. Many of the pieces I picked up had fish eyes in them as well. Novaculite is good material for cabochons and for knappers too. The Indians used Novaculite for many of their arrowheads and scrapers. While I do not make jewelry or indian artifacts, I do like this stuff for yard rocks due to its beauty. Let me know if you need information on the location and I will put you in touch with Mr. Parker to set up a field trip there.

These are some of my favorites that I collected down there…hope to bring back some larger ones the next time down there. Some of them had dendrites on them as well and here are my favorites with those….

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

A Pleasant Surprise at the Secret Spot

Posted on December 19, 2014 by jwj

I decided I should return to the secret spot since I hadn`t been there for several weeks, last time being when I found the big and deep dogtooth pocket. Missy and I didn`t get up til mid morning and by the time we got started in that direction, it was late morning…it slipped my mind that it now gets dark sooner, so by the time we arrived, I had about four hours of light left..in my favor, it was cloudy so I knew that the evening light would linger longer, kind of like that one night there when I found that small cavern full of dogtooth crystals and needed as much time as I could get to clean it out…another prayer answered that evening. We arrived to find to our dismay, a large pool of water on two sides of the secret spot…the last time we were there, it was dry all the way across in there, and while it was due to be much warmer than it had been lately, I had been dealing with a lot of congestion and didn`t feel like taking a chance on making it worse. I changed into my boots, grabbed my mini mattox and walked down to the end of the pool of water and crossed over by climbing up the hill and then sliding down to the other side…walking along the wall looking for potential pockets. After about an hour, I got down to the spot where I located a large and deep pocket chock full of beautiful dogtooth crystals and clusters in September, many attached to bubbly druse pieces….

…so I started on down the wall and within about five minutes, began finding some single dogtooth crystals loose in the dirt again…which is exactly the way I found the pocket in September…so I began digging in and sure enough, a small hole opened up. I was standing on a ledge, that measured about four inches wide, two feet up off the gravel sloped floor above the water…you can see it in the photo below, at a forty five degree angle left and below my mini mattox….

…and here in relation to the September pocket, which is that large squareish hole on the left side of the photo below….

…at any rate, I reached into the small opening of the pocket and started pulling single bright orange dogtooth crystals out and within five minutes, had my sweatshirt pocket full, so I reached over and scraped clean a nearby ledge about seven inches long by five inches wide…and soon enough, I had it completely full as well. I then started pulling out some larger clusters of dogtooths attached to some beautiful bubbley druse…these I set up inside an older pocket located a few feet below that was within easy reach, seen here to the left of my mattox…..

….and in no time at all, I had it filled up as well….

…leaving me no choice but to step down off that narrow ledge and start filling the bag…which didn`t take long with all the goodies I had stored up by that time. I set the large clusters down on the dirt next to the bag, then climbed back up and pulled even more out. Soon I had the bag filled and knew I was going to have to return to the truck to get more bags…I was not looking forward to the long trip around the water hole to the truck, carrying a heavy bag, but I did it…and once I made it back to the truck, after taking a short water bottle break, I decided to switch to my old fireman`s boots and wade back across the water hole to the pocket with more bags, as well as my hammer and chisel. The only bad thing about this switch, was that while the rubber boots kept my feet dry and warm, they were not good for climbing back up on that narrow ledge…since I had to make several more trips across the water to the truck, carrying larger clusters and bags of wrapped crystals, I put up with the extra work and pain. I was up and down that wall pulling crystals out of that pocket, which I kept having to expand the opening, because the crystals kept going to the left…pretty soon I was also pulling down the roof plates, which were beautiful bubbley druse plates, some with dogtooths attached and some with just poker chips attached. This roof plate remained in the deep pocket when I finished for the evening…

and the pocket keeps going to the left where it`s dark…it was every bit of 30 inches from right to left in area that I had cleared out in three hours time and probably about fifteen inches across from front to back wall.

By the time I finished that evening, light was slowly fading and the opening of the pocket looked like this….

…but by the end of the day, my calf muscles and my feet were very sore, felt like I had been running up hill all day long. I returned the next afternoon to see about cleaning out the pocket, not having enough time the day before to do so. This time, I took a short step ladder with me so that I would have something wider to step on…

…and since it was much warmer today, 70 degrees to be exact…I decided to put my old hiking boots on and wade across in them….

…and another wise decision that afternoon was to widen out the mouth of the pocket once again, in order to reach the remaining crystals on the far left side of the pocket, so I started from this point…..

…and took out that big chunk just inside the gray outside rock, as well as some of the roof rock and that gray outside rock on the left side above….resulting in this size below….

..removing about another foot of rock, so that I didn`t have to use my hand rake and drag crystals and clusters across the pocket to my waiting hand…possibly resulting in more damage to the crystals, possibly even breaking off tips. The last thing I did after cleaning out the last elements inside the pocket to the very left side, was to remove that huge roof plate I left in there the night before…I had to jam my chisel in and wedge it out, first putting my hand rake under it to soften the blow…by this time, I was out of wrapping cloths and extra bags to do that with. When it came down, it landed on the rake handle, which did soften the blow as planned, and it was all I could do, mustering all of my remaining strength to roll that huge roof plate over and then think about muscling it down that ladder. I decided not to try that part, instead dropping it to the ground, where it immediately stuck into the soft dirt, again as planned. Later when I took one of my breaks, I picked it up, with my legs and not my back, and muscled it across the water hole to the truck….

…it had a lot of base dolomite rock on it…am guessing it weighed in about 100 lbs at least. I filled two more bags and wrapped up several roof plates that were smaller than this one, thankfully, and took to the truck, along with my tools and the ladder. The sun was beginning to set as I left, and I decided to drive down and see a good friend who is a mineral dealer in Doe Run specimens, before heading home. Here is how the sunset looked as I left….

Darkness fell while I was visiting with Dave and on the way home, I nearly struck a big doe, probably the closest I have come to hitting one in my life…I came around a corner on the highway and spotted a deer on the right side just up on the bank inside the woods, and then with my peripheral vision, caught motion on my left and I looked around just in time to see this big doe jump out into the roadway and skid across toward my pickup…instead of hitting the brakes, I hit the gas as this doe was fast approaching my mirror…never felt a bump and saw it still skidding across the road in my tail lights as I kept going. Luckily the rest of my trip home was just fine. I cleaned up the crystals yesterday and today on my days off and photographed them as well…enjoy….

…this next one is an enigma to me…looks like a small druse piece on top, but look closely at the edge….

…cause when you turn it over, there is a dogtooth inside a poker chip calcite formation, inside the shell of the small druse piece…..never seen one like that….

All in all, a pretty good weekend and beautiful weather for December too…hope everyone has a great and Merry Christmas, safe travels for anyone on the road as well.

Pretty Sunrise on the way to MFQ

Posted on December 19, 2014 by jwj

I wasn`t on call Saturday the 29th of November, so Missy and I loaded up early in the morning and headed to MFQ, stopping off in Rolla to fuel up. As soon as I got out of the truck, I noticed the beautiful sunrise in the eastern skies and while the pump was operating, I grabbed a couple of quick images, in case it fizzled out on down 44…….

…however, not only did it not fizzle out, it was even prettier as I traveled on….

Missy and I arrived at the quarry about 7:30 am, temps were about 50 degrees, cloudy skies with a promise for clearing off and warming up a bit. I changed into my boots and grabbed my mini mattox and walked the wall to survey it… and I noticed soon after that there were several pockets with great potential up on the wall just out of my reach, so I called my buddy who lives down there and asked him if he had a ladder I could borrow…about twenty minutes later, he pulled up and delivered a nice sturdy step ladder to me…

...and I laddered the wall right below the pockets and began working them from left to right. Many of the pockets had some beautiful chocolate brown druse inside them…the first three pockets I pulled plate after plate of druse out. If only I had a hydraulic lift bucket truck, I could have accessed the potential looking pockets way up high on the wall, several appeared to be very nice looking, in the top third of the photo below….

I was able to brace the ladder well in the rocks below and then climb up to the top…and that pocket at the top in the next photo, looked very promising….

…and boy let me tell you, it was full of some nice dark colored poker chips, some dogtooth crystals, and some nice plates of chocolate colored druse too….