MFQ in June Part 1

Posted on June 30, 2013 by jwj

Sorry folks, been doing a lot of rockhunting this month, starting with the first weekend at Marion, Kentucky at the annual Gem Show and Fluorite Dig at the Eureka Mine, and then stopping off at a new quarry on the way home from that…and the past two weekends I`ve been taking a new friend rockhunting to a couple of quarries in south central Missouri and found out that he shares the same enthusiasm for it as I do. I`m a bit sore today, after eight hours of extensive digging at MFQ yesterday, but it was well worth it, cause we opened up about ten huge pockets of chocolate brown dogtooth crystals, some of them were big crystals, some were a bright yellow dogtooth nestled into dolomite druse crystals, and several pockets of poker chip clusters, some of those were nestled into the druse as well. Ray even found a pocket of pure white druse quartz soda straws and was able to remove a few intact. I`ll start with last weekend`s trip first.

I talked to Ray about a week before Sunday the 23rd, and he let me know that he was off and available to go with me finally. He has a lot less free time with his job, than I do, and was finally able to get away for a day, so I jumped at the chance to take him and comped out on my short night to take him rockhunting. Despite the excessive heat forecast for the day, we headed south about mid morning and arrived late morning, and pulled into the middle of the blast pile remains. Ray immediately grabbed some tools and headed to the tall wall right in front of my truck and began looking for pockets….

Soon after climbing up the short pile there, he found a pocket and began chipping out some crystals….

I looked to the left and this is what was left of the blast pile looking west….

He wasn`t over there for long though, he wandered around a bit and then came over to check and see what I was finding in the solid chunk of blasted out rock on the west side of the pile. After getting my boots on, I had first walked over to the east side piles and found a few very large yard rocks that had crystals all over them, decided I would look at them again later if I needed to, and then walked to the west side pile and found some pockets of dolomite druse at the base of a large chunk of wall that appeared to have separated itself from the wall and fell down into the middle of the pile on blast off. Ray joined me there and we were soon finding pockets of chocolate colored dogtooth crystals with eroded poker chip formations around them and appeared to have been sprinkled with brown sugar as well. I didn`t take my camera over close to that chunk of rock, because there was dust and small rocks raining down on us all afternoon, below you can see Ray putting some of his finds into a boxtop after wrapping them up about thirty feet away from the chunk of rock…

I did zoom in however to show you some pockets we found at the base of that big boy….

Boy was it hot that day…guessing it was about 95 when we arrived and the humidity was something else as well…felt like a wet blanket wrapped around me much of the day…we took a lot of breaks and went through a lot of cold water, at times pouring it into our hats for a nice refreshing splash when we put our hats back on. I know my limits when it comes to heat exhaustion and warning, and let me tell you, we both hit our limits on the exhaustion part a few times that day and had to sit down a bit and take a breather. We were finding so many nice crystals and hated to, but had to…one of those priority things. I was glad I had brought enough water with me, we were wringing wet within fifteen minutes after our arrival. After one of our breaks mid afternoon, we decided to knock down some of the big boulders on the right side of that chunk to make things safer for collecting, here is Ray using one of my pry bars to knock some down on the right side….

…til things finally looked much safer…..

….we worked on pulling a few more out and then left about an hour later, and headed to another quarry to check things out there…as we were heading there, we saw black storm clouds to the north. We arrived and hadn`t been there long when the wind suddenly picked up and turned much cooler very fast, we watched the storm clouds roll our way and then split off on either side of us. We stayed about an hour and found a few pockets, Ray located some nice druse plates, and then we headed for home. I had the following weekend off and told him to let me know his schedule then, and we would go again. Here are some of my finds all cleaned up from the quarries….

…and here is a mess of the clusters found too….

…the next photo shows a dogtooth exposed in the lower end of a crystal, coming out at the top end, nestled on a base of matrix and dolomite druse…

…and more dogtooths….

Spectacular Dogtooth Crystals and Clusters

Posted on June 21, 2013 by jwj

I got bored the other day on my day off and decided to drive back down to the new spot and see what else could be found…Missy decided to tag along since it wasn`t extremely hot and we arrived about mid afternoon. In the next four hours, I discovered hundreds of spectacular dogtooth crystals and clusters in a few gooey wet clay pockets, which started going deep on me fast, and as I dug down into the wet clay even deeper, I discovered some blue and brown colored ones underneath a bed of bright yellow and orange ones !!! I was blown away…I wrapped them up double in the terry cloths I had and filled five bags completely full !!! I was so happy with them that I headed home with an hour of daylight left. I started working on cleaning them up this afternoon, some of them are double terminated, and there are some twin dogtooth crystals in this batch as well, one of them was about six inches tall and had the brightest yellow center I have ever seen on a dogtooth……

Here are the crystals and dogtooths I found, now all cleaned up….

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

BE Clement Museum Gem Show and Dig Celebration 2013

Posted on June 6, 2013 by jwj

Several of us had a good time in Marion, Kentucky this past weekend, despite a lot of rain and storms pelting the area Friday morning before our arrival as well as later into the night before finally ending late Saturday morning, turning everything at the Eureka Mine into a gooey muddy mess.

I arrived at the museum around 2 pm on Friday afternoon and found Tina supervising a busy crew of helpers, that were assisting dealers and vendors at Fohs Hall in setting up their booths and preparing for the rock and mineral show on Saturday and Sunday. I transported some more grab bag material, and some druse/poker chip pieces for their silent auction as well and they helped me unload that too. Tina`s daughter, Jesse, took me back to get a quick look at their new display room in the museum while there, a project that Tina and a few members have been working on since the first of the year and let me tell you, they have done a great job with the new display cases that were built by the Amish community handimen to the north of Marion, and they look great, they have each one holding specific crystals and minerals of a specific type/category, nothing is mixed up any longer. their cubed display glass cases were moved out away from the wall and their new maps were placed up on the back wall for easier viewing. this room is near the back, one before the black light room.

As I walked outside the museum with Tina, I ran into Lamon Flynn, who had traveled up for the gem show with his grandson and they were unloading their Kentucky agate to sell and a large display case that holds his agate keepers, to show off as well. We talked for a bit, he was asking about Ian from Colorado, and Peggy of the Twister Sisters and if she had survived the latest round of storms in the Midwest. I found out his grandson had just graduated high school and was preparing to attend college and become a police officer.

After chitchatting with them a bit more, I headed to the hotel at Kuttawa and got settled in there, and then had a great supper at the Oasis Steakhouse next door. I heard from my mom, who told me about the bad storms that struck the Oklahoma City area once again, we have family members there, and then the St Louis area later in the day, at least three tornadoes. I then watched the local weathercasters, who were calling for the storms to move southeast and hit the Marion area around 3 to 5 am, with rain then forecast to fall much of the morning. I wasn`t sure how bad it would get the next day, so I retired early to get as much rest as possible.

I woke up about 6 am and discovered the rain pouring down outside my room, not sure if you can see it in this photo, but it was coming down in sheets, I could only hope it would clear off by noon as the forecasters were calling for…

…and after grabbing some donuts at Miss Neta`s Donut Shop in Eddyville, I headed to the Eureka Mine…..and arrived about 7:30 am to begin pumping down the pit. I had contacted and offered to help Bill Frazer and free him up from his many other tasks for this weekend, and he accepted my offer. I pulled up to park near the mine and found a muddy mess all over the place….

Apparently between Friday morning and Saturday morning, the pit area received about five inches of rainfall, so when I arrived, there was an additional two to three feet of water in the pit more than normal, and as a result, it was almost noon before I was able to pump the pit completely down to where diggers could even access and dig in the pit. For the first three hours of pumping, I wasn`t even sure the water level had dropped at all.

By 10 am, diggers started showing up…Mary from Ohio, was the first to arrive and soon after, several more showed up.

By noon there were approximately 35 diggers at the Eureka and while many stayed on top and worked through the three tailing piles, a few ventured down into the pit. I can safely say, it was the sloppiest gooey muddy mix I have ever seen there, every step on top was about ten inches down in the wet sloppy mud and down in the pit, you were lucky if you didnt lose your boots or shoes…even those with the pull on galoshes were experiencing problems keeping them on.

Around 11 am, a carload of geology students from the University of Illinois at Champaign showed up and began digging.

A few of them were brave, daring to move around the muddy mess barefoot…..

They were walking up to take a look at what Robin had found in the tailing pile back behind them, what was left of the huge pile on the north side of the pit last year, and had been turned over a week before the show and dig. Robin had found some nice cubes and showed them what they should be looking for in the mud….

…and Robin had found some nice ones by the time the geology students arrived, one of them a nice small set of cubes seen here close up in his crate….

…including that green bottle that I found in the mud that morning at the top of the pit…I hollered out, ” who collects bottles ” and he answered ” I do ” and got the bottle. I have discovered people collect different things these days in addition to rocks….

Diggers were looking through the tailing piles on both sides of the pit, this guy checking out the pile on the south side of the pit…

and you will notice he has his rain gear on, as many of us did, until around noon or a little after, when the sun came out finally…some went without rain gear deciding a little wet wasnt gonna hurt them at all since they were gonna get muddy anyway…..

…and the mud created hazards on its own, making balance very important…

….and getting back to looking for fluorite everywhere…this next guy John, one of the Maryland crew, I found him down in the muddy water pit about an hour later, looking for crystals…I think he figured it was worth a shot since it was near the backfilled area…

…and here are a couple more of the Maryland crewmembers, washing off crystals in the outflow from the pump….

…but no matter what, people still showed up and continued to dig all day out there, in all age groups too….

…..above is Ohio Steve clearing out after searching all morning down by the creek bank, he actually found a rockhammer down there buried in the mud…..and below is my buddy Steve from Memphis, walking around looking for treasures on the north side of the pit….

…and more afternoon diggers shown and raingear set off to the side as the sun was now out and it was humid as well….

One of the geology students, Cody, stood out when he showed up completely prepared for any type of weather in waders, and by the time he left for the day about six hours later, he was muddy from the front toes of his boots to the very top of the waders, looked like he had gotten down into the pit and rolled in it, but I can tell you Cody was one happy digger by then, having a few large yard rocks and some smaller cubed clusters as well for his muddy adventures. He was also happy because some rockhounds from Maryland….yes I said Maryland… had given him some instruction and assistance in hard rock mining as he was trying to tackle a pocket he found in the saddle in the middle of the pit. After learning how to hard rock mine some cubes, he was quite happy just to have learned the method, even though he really didnt extricate any cubes from the pocket. He was working over on the south side of the pit when Robin and Sandy joined me on the north side to take a closer look at the old tunnel entrance…..

….we tried digging it out to see if there was anything worthwhile in the mix, but didnt find a thing in it. After I explained the saddle to Cody, he moved to it to try and work the pockets, we then moved over to the south side where I began moving mud away from the base and digging down to the bench level and pulling out some small clusters of fluorite cubes. After a bit Tammy Bromley and her sister joined me on that side, staying up on top and sifting thru the tailing piles, after looking around on the north side all morning. Steven and April Gibbs arrived around 1 pm and stayed up on top working the spoil piles as well.

As I stated, there was an entire group that traveled down from the state of Maryland for the dig at the Eureka Mine, a club outing for them and after talking to them a bit, discovered that they do this quite a bit, and are planning now for an upcoming trip out to Utah to look for geodes red beryl, and agate. They had made the drive down here straight thru, and it required around fifteen hours. They stayed the entire day with us at the Eureka and around 4:30 pm, Bill Frazer came down the road to warn us of a dark storm cloud approaching from the northwest…we could see it coming down the valley but couldnt tell much about it due to the restriction of the trees blocking our narrow view of it, but as it neared our location, it suddenly changed direction and headed in a more easterly direction toward the highway from the pit. By that time though, all of us had bailed from the pit and decided we were tired and muddy enough to retire early for the day. The Maryland crew decided to stick around and take advantage of the waterfall under the bridge to clean up at before heading out, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel to clean up and go to the steakhouse. As I got to the intersection of Hwy 60, I could see the cloud that concerned everyone and saw that it was a roll cloud, a very long reaching roll cloud, several miles long and neat looking as well. They can be quite scary looking when accompanied by dark colored clouds. After a brief stop at the museum to talk to Tina, I headed to the hotel and stopped briefly near Fredonia to photograph the pretty horses that are always in the field next to the highway……

…and then I headed on south to the hotel to get cleaned up and then meet Steve, April, and her mom at the Oasis for a great meal and catch up on old times. They are great rockhunting friends from Memphis and I hadn`t seen them for about a year, so we caught up on events in the past year through supper. They are creating jewelry with their treasures these days so they were going to the show on Sunday morning. I had brought them some agates and other gems as well.

Sunday morning dawned early for me, it didnt seem like I had gotten enough rest and I had a long day in front of me. I arrived at the mine about 7 am this time and started the pump, the water level back down to its normal level this time and so it only took about 90 minutes to pump it down. I stopped after about an hour though and diverted the flow to the water hose and washed off the bench in case there would be any hard rock miners this time. Even though there were no hard rock miners there in the morning, there might have been some later on. Tammy and her sister were the first ones to arrive after Mike the host, and I put them down in the corner pocket I had been working the day before….

….and after helping them for a while, I took off for home, stopping off at the museum to give BJ the gate key and then walked over to the gem show to visit a bit. I bought a few pieces of agate from Mr. Flynn and he invited me back to hunt with him anytime in the Irvine area and I told him I would def do that. As he said, springtime is better as far as less leaves covering the ground, but early fall has its advantages as well, as the deep creek holes are usually drier by then too. These days with the recession still making things difficult for many people, there are many more folks out hunting for it and selling it on the side, so you have to be careful as some of them are a bit on the shady side.

I soon headed home from there, taking Hwy 60 to Paducah due to the restricted roadway and construction stupidity on I-24 from Eddyville to Paducah. I stopped in Paducah to fill my gas tank, gas there 3.37 a gallon and then headed west on Hwy 62 and 286 to Wickliffe, crossing first the Ohio River and then the Mississippi River on the twin steel structure bridges near Cairo…..

….as I entered Charleston, Missouri, I encountered the lowest priced gas pumps seen so far on the trip, at the truck stop there, 3.25 a gallon and kinda wished then, that I had filled up there instead. Oh well…

On my way home, I made a pit stop at a great location that a buddy of mine told me about in south central Missouri, and filled my entire truck up with beautiful clusters and single crystals of calcite and druse, some that were several inches in diameter and length, and in many colors including some pinks and greens. I had several huge clusters in the front passenger seat and the entire back seat filled up, as well as the bed of my truck…I had to leave several behind because I simply had no more room to put them. I found some gorgeous orange dogtooth crystals there as well, and carefully wrapped them up and placed in several of my blue bags.

Hopefully they will still be there in a couple of weeks when I return with a rockhunting friend from the St Louis area. I was very tired when I finally got home about 11 pm Sunday night, but also very happy. It looks like my next few days off will involve alot of crystal cleaning and catching up on my blog site as well, as I now have about a dozen bags of wrapped crystals to clean up. As soon as I get them cleaned up and some photos taken, I`ll post them then.

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

Pocket of Black Dogtooth Crystals at MFQ

Posted on May 19, 2013 by jwj

Missy and I had nothing better to do with our time yesterday so we got up early and headed south to MFQ. It was a bit froggy when we took off west and shortly I found out, the fog was heavy up on the hills and almost non existent in the valleys, which is usually the opposite of normal. I had received a call from a good friend down there the evening before and he told me that the blast pile was completely removed and the walls of that coved blast area now exposed, so I figured it would be a good time to drive down and check it out.

It stayed foggy the whole way down there, and when we arrived, I drove down past the old hunting area and over to the new coved section of the wall, and sure enough, the blast pile was all gone except for a few boulders and the walls looked untouched….

…it was still a little foggy as you can see above…but as long as I could see the walls, I was okay…got my boots and hard hat on fast and grabbed my tools and a bag of wrapping cloths and was soon looking for crystals that had rolled down the piles from the walls to figure out the location of pockets…here are the walls up closer from right to left….

…you can see in the wall photos that they look vuggy and believe me, they were…..within a few minutes I had located three nice crystals and a medium sized cluster of crystals…

…including this beautiful dark gray, almost black, poker chip crystal in matrix….

My buddy Jim came by a few minutes later, just as I was starting to locate pockets, he and his girlfriend had been up in town and he told me that by the evening, the main highway which is also their Main Street, would be closed to traffic, for a street dance this weekend. I assured him I would not be going into town. We chatted a bit more and then they took off to get their day started and I set about looking for crystals. By this time, the fog was beginning to lift a bit….

….and soon after when it lifted completely, I was so deep in crystals that I didn`t even notice it. I found the first set of pockets straight back in the middle of the back wall, at the top of the falldown material, and began burrowing into the wall at that spot……

….where you see the bags above, and soon the first few crystals I removed from that spot were clusters of black dogtooth poker chips….

….the first five I pulled out in fact…here are a couple of them….

….and the next thing I knew, the pocket branched off to the right and left into two other pockets, one mixed with dolomite druse as is often the case there….

…and here are more of the crystals from those other two pockets….

…but you wont hear me complaining cause I personally like the poker chips surrounded and imbedded in the dolomite druse, cause it looks like marcasite or pyrite instead of druse, in the sunlight, by the way it sparkles alot…occasionally I see some of that mixed into the druse too. I filled five bags completely full with the crystals from these three pockets, and then stood up to take a break, and stretch my legs and walk around a bit…Missy had finished her rounds and was laying in the shade under the tailgate of my truck by then…I walked over and got a bottle of water and took a long drink and then grabbed another bag and decided to walk the wall and see if I could locate any other crystals loose or in pockets. It didn`t take long to find some out in plain site along the wall and I was able to remove quite a few nice ones…I wrapped those up and then started to return to the first set of pockets. I was climbing back up the pile to retrieve my mini mattox, and off to the left side about twenty feet from the original pockets, when I noticed some loose poker chips in the pile…I reached down to pick them up and all of a sudden, more appeared underneath in the rubble, so I began digging down and soon after, discovered a pocket down deeper in the pile….

…that had apparently fell off the top somewhere months back and was buried all this time intact….I pulled several nice crystals out of this pocket…they were intact and in good health, protected because the rocks surrounding the crystals came down completely intact as well. I decided to stop and work this pocket and then finish up the original pocket afterwards…it took me well over an hour to empty this pocket, pulling out several nice clusters and crystals embedded in a sea of dolomite druse, some of it a bright yellow color….

…as you can see, they were tightly packed in there, and pulling them out was no easy task, cause there was a huge pile of sand and small rocks up on top that kept on sliding down occasionally…like whenever I pulled a crystal out of the pocket….

…after about the fourth slide of rocks and sand, I triggered a large slide and got it all out of the way, and then began digging down into the pocket once again, this time without all the hangover stuff to worry about….

…and here you can see I haven`t gotten to the point of triggering the final slide yet, cause it`s still raining down below a bit….but I`m getting close to the back of the pocket and the only thing left are some druse attached pieces to pull out….

…and here are a few of the crystals I pulled from this pocket found in the pile….

…including this nice large double poker chip crystal….

as well as this smaller dogtooth with slight damage to it….

…and here is another beautiful brown dogtooth double that I pulled out of the first pocket found….

After finishing up cleaning out the original three pockets, I moved along the wall to the right, and found a few more crystals in some smaller pockets, and then discovered a pocket full of druse…since they sometimes contain poker chips too, I checked it out and discovered they were either plates and chunks of bubbled black colored druse, or druse with hematite balls all over them. I`m still not quite sure, but maybe after I clean them up I will have a better idea…at any rate, I filled two bags full from this one pocket and had two large ones that didn`t fit in the bag. We headed home soon after that, very tired and very satisfied. I`ll get some more photos on here as soon as I finish the cleaning work.

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

Poker Chips and Dogtooth Crystals…May 2013

Posted on May 9, 2013 by jwj

Dont worry folks, I`m still hunting frequently, just been busy helping my parents with storm damage from a few weeks ago and catching up on some other details here at home, and still have about ten bags of crystals to clean up…will get the details and photos posted on here soon. Been finding some spectacular stuff lately. The details don`t matter as much as the photos, so here are some photos showing what I have been finding lately….

For the fluorite fans, the June Celebration Dig and Rock Show will be the last weekend of May, which is the first weekend of June as well, at Marion, Kentucky. Hope to see you there.

Guided Druse and Poker Chip Hunt, April 2013

Posted on April 27, 2013 by jwj

Last weekend, a friend of mine came up from the Atlanta area after arranging with me in March, to take him and a couple of his friends to some good locations to find druse quartz and poker chip calcite crystals. They definitely wanted to go to MFQ and they wanted to find some druse quartz in varying sizes, so I took them to two different locations for the druse and we spent all day Saturday at MFQ. We had a few days of wet weather before they arrived and all the creeks and rivers were way up when they arrived Thursday evening. They were thinking of visiting Peck Ranch to see the elk herd being restored by the Conservation Department of Missouri, however they were not traveling in four wheel drive vehicles, so I suggested they avoid that area, as the roads there crossed several low water bridges and could be flooded easily. As it was, a good buddy of mine who works for the Conservation Department, advised me that the area was closed because additional elk were being brought in to add to the herd.

I had to work Thursday night all night, came home about 8 am and got a four hour nap, then took Missy to get beautified and arranged with my parents to pick her up afterward, and then I headed south to take them to a great druse quartz spot nearby. I pulled into the meeting spot and found Chet in his cargo van, sitting next to Don and David, in their smaller passenger van. After introductions and some small talk, we drove on out to the druse spot…..

We started finding druse quartz all over the place, with the aid of beautiful sunlight…it had been a few days since we had seen sunlight, and while it was a bit cool on Friday, the sunlight made it feel alot warmer and was a welcome sight. Granted, we needed the rainfall, but five inches in a day or two is a bit much in my book. As a result, I had warned these guys to bring boots and expect to get muddy, and so they did. I have been to this spot before when every step you took, you added four pounds of mud to your boots, and eventually it becomes a workout just to walk around there, let alone pick up druse quartz clusters.

I started out helping Chet, Don and David find some pretty areas of smokey colored druse and citrine colored druse, and then began looking around for a few pieces myself. Pretty soon they were immersed in a few gullies…..

….and I was walking all over the hillside spotting some bigger clusters for them and pointing them out when I did find one. This is a great place to visit after a good hard rain, cause most of these pretties just erode and wash out of the clay dirt….

We only had access to about half of the area as there was some work being done and we didn`t want to intrude or get in the way….

I found some beautiful seams of smokey colored quartz here and there all over the place, here is one below….

…and then I walked upon a chunk of bubbles that had eroded right of out of the clay dirt….

…pretty soon, I came upon David with his head down and burrowing uphill in a gully, looking for druse and finding it all up and down it….

he was following a seam of smokey colored druse in that gully….

I also found some pretty white druse plates laying around all over the place as well….

These guys had brought me some beautiful quartz crystal plates from Diamond Hill Mine in South Carolina, close to Atlanta, and I was so busy since last weekend, that I didn`t get a chance to unwrap them til today. There was also a very beautiful cluster of smokey amethyst and a nice small plate of smokey quartz crystals as well….

By the time 5 pm rolled around, I was wearing down pretty fast…the hill at this location isn`t all that big, but after walking up and down it several times and carrying bags of crystals back to the truck a few times, my four hour nap after a fourteen hour shift the night before, was soon catching up with me. By 5:30 pm, I was headed out of there and back to the house, stopping off at my parents house to pick up Missy and then heading home to get some supper and then to bed. I stayed up just long enough to catch up on emails and then hit the hay, as I was getting up early to meet Don and David at MFQ the next morning.

After dropping off Missy with my parents once again, I was on the road headed to MFQ a little after 6 am, stopping off to get some donuts and then back on the road. I made good time, running into very little other traffic and all the way down, kept seeing several squirrels and chipmunks on the pavement around every turn and over every hill. I had a good sized gobbler run out in front of me as I started down a hill…I had passed several turkey hunters on the way down, most of them were warming up in their trucks when I passed by….it was pretty cool that morning and still a bit damp wind blowing as well…. I can remember a few cold turkey hunts myself. The closer I got to the quarry, it seemed like the squirrels on the road just multiplied greatly…it was like driving an obstacle course at times, luckily I didn`t hit any of them, although a few of them were not moving very fast and I held my breath a few times.

I drove down the last hill on approach to the quarry entrance and spotted David walking the ditchline and as I pulled into the entrance, spotted Don outside their van pulling on his boots. David walked over and said he was looking for old bottles, another of his hobbies. We drove on down to the first bluff area and parked and I pointed out the area that Ian and I had worked for pockets of poker chip crystals with dolomite druse clusters, and they grabbed their tools and wasted no time in attacking the rocks….

Don decided it would be safer to work the point without that large overhang of rock above him so he first started working on bringing it down with his prybars….

It was apparent that the rains down there had been hot and heavy as well, due to the way the clay dirt had washed down over the rocky bluff there. I helped them look for some possible pocket areas, before driving on over to the newer area where the rock has been more actively worked lately….

I no sooner pulled up at the more recent spot, and stepped out, when I started spotting some beautiful dark grey and chocolate colored poker chips laying all over the floor of the quarry at the base of the sloped rock pile…..

….and pretty soon, I had the entire tailgate of my pickup covered with them…..

I grabbed my mini mattox and a couple of bags and walked down the small pile of rocks at the very base of the pile along the floor and continued finding some great crystals and even a few clusters, including a couple of green ones….

I decided to stay there and see if I could find some pockets for Don and David when they decided to amble over and work it. I followed a couple of trails of crystals that had rolled down from above, way up above even, and dug a few out of some loose roll down material from above as well. I spotted a couple of potential pockets in the walls and made a mental note to point them out to Dr Destructo Don when he arrived later in the day…Chet arrived about an hour later and after visiting with Don and David at the smaller bluff area, drove over to see what I was finding as well. He liked the color of the crystals in the fresher area and then drove back to the smaller bluff to work with David, trading places with Don, who came over to work the fresher area with me….

I pointed out the mentally marked pockets and he went right to work with his bar, knocking down the loose stuff and working on the more confined stuff, to find pocket openings and soon found some nice clusters…..

I stopped to take a break and get another donut down, having worked off the other two already. As I was standing there watching Don work up on a shelf, my buddy, Jim Bay, pulled up in his pretty blue Dodge pickup, to see how we were doing with the rocks and see what we were finding so far. His girlfriend was with him and she was amazed at how we were working the rocks and what we were finding there. You cant see the pretty stuff from the highway when you pass by, so most people prob have no clue what type of pretty rock is actually there with the plain looking rock and stone that you generally see. They had been out turkey hunting early morning and then napped a bit before driving down to check on us. I had called him about an hour before that. After a bit, they headed on into town and we continued to break down the rocks and find some pockets. Don did a good job of pacing himself while I did a good job of wearing myself out. David ambled over while taking a break, took one look at the height of the walls and decided to go back to the small bluff area to work the pockets there…..

Don and I continued to work the fresher area for a couple more hours before I wore out….I wandered up to the top of the pile and looked around, but couldn`t locate any newer stuff…I did spot a couple of large poker chip crystals cradled up high on the wall, but impossible to get to…I commented to Don if we only had a long pole with a metal catch on the end like they used on light bulbs in gymnasiums, we could prob dislodge those crystals but then would need a large basket to catch them in with lots of padding in the bottom….Don wanted a rapelling rope. I headed home soon after that..my legs were sore as could be and I was exhausted as well. It was decided to meet at Davisville on Sunday morning and travel out to a second druse location where larger druse pieces could be found.

Sunday morning, Missy went with me and we headed down the road about 8 am, arriving in Davisville at the local Store just ahead of David, Don, and Chet…and then we drove north out of town to the other druse spot. I stuck around about an hour and showed them a few different areas there to check out, before heading home to help my parents with some more storm damage work. I heard from them later on, they had found several nice large pieces of druse and then returned to MFQ, discovering a pocket that they wanted to check out, had already been cleaned out that morning by someone else. All in all, I believe they had a good trip up here and found alot of nice material. I found some nice material, made two new rockhunting friends, and got some more beautiful Diamond Hill specimens as well…a very good weekend….

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

March Fluorite Digs at the Eureka Mine in Kentucky

Posted on April 16, 2013 by jwj

After many months of planning another machine dig at the Eureka Mine in Marion, Kentucky, and coordinating all the details with Tina at the Ben E Clement Mineral Museum and Bill Frazer, the mine owner, Mike Streeter and I set the dates up for the last two weekends in March this spring. As usual, we set the machine dig the weekend before the group dig and Mike took care of getting the machinery set up for it, contacting Wayne Crider to once again dig out the pit for us. Wayne always does a great job and is quite easy to work with, and he operates his trackhoe with great skill and precision, plus he is a nice guy and very knowledgeable.

As the time neared, we ran into a unexpected roadblock…I received a call from Bill Frazer, seems some jerk called the Kentucky DNR office and complained to them about the way the digs were being handled at the Eureka Mine and made up a few other things as well. The DNR decided to shut down the digs and entire operation of the Museum, until the complaint could be investigated. Bill advised me that it should be just a temporary halt, but said he would keep me updated. I called Mike and he advised the other guys what was going on, and we let our group members know that the scheduled dig might be postponed as well.

True to his word, Bill called a couple of days later and let me know that we were back on for both digs and with just a few minor stipulations set out by the DNR, that we could easily live with. After a few back and forth emails and phone calls, we decided not to let some jerk spoil things for us, nor the hundreds of rockhounds across the nation who enjoy traveling to the Eureka Mine to dig for pretty fluorite specimens to add to their collections. It was decided that three of us would be making the trip this year for the machine dig and then I would return for the group dig as well.

I contacted Tina to let her know about what time I would arrive on Friday, March 22nd because I would be hauling several hundred pounds of crystals to them, for their grab bag booth at their annual show in June. The weather forecast was calling for all sorts of weather again this year…thought we might be up to our eyeballs in mud the first day and snow on the second day… one never knows what to expect down there in March, or here in Missouri for that matter, so I packed rain gear, cold weather clothing, and warm weather clothing, three pair of boots and six pair of gloves….ready for the best and prepared for the worst. Since the forecast wasn`t for much dry weather, I left Missy with my parents for the weekend. She loves to go on walks with my Mom, who takes about three walks a day, so I knew she would be better off with them this weekend.

I took off on Friday morning, getting a little later start than I had anticipated, and when I filled up the gas tank, it was 3.59 a gallon here, when I crossed the river into Illinois, it was 3.83 a gallon, and then when I arrived in Paducah, it was 3.43 a gallon…I had decided to drive all interstate this time, since a good friend of mine told me that the road construction delays in Illinois were a thing of the past, much of it completed finally, and she turned out to be correct about that. I took my time cruising down the roads at 65 mph and got 23 mpg for it, even with the heavier load in the bed. I crossed over the Ohio River and arrived in Paducah about 2 pm….

….and called Tina from the gas pumps at the Pilot Truck Stop on the north side of town, to let her know I should be there in an hour….little did I know that there was a major traffic jam waiting on me in a road construction zone about twenty minutes east of Paducah. She wasn`t aware of it either or she would have warned me to take Hwy 60 instead, but as it was, Kentucky DOT didn`t want to let anyone know about it either, apparently, because their warning signs were pretty much nowhere to be found…I was up and over the Tennessee River bridge on I-24 before I realized that the long line of traffic stopped in the left lane was for the construction lane restriction ahead, rather than for an accident ahead. Luckily, I was able to slow down fast and get over in front of a truck driver and instantly get bogged down in the crawl ahead for ten miles…here I thought only our state allowed stupid road construction zones…I say stupid because driving along for the next ten miles at a crawl, we did not see one, NOT ONE area of construction activity on that eastbound side at all !!!! NOTHING !!!! and at the very end, maybe half a mile from the end, on the westbound side, was one very small area of roadwork activity, and even then, the road crew was off the roadway, over on the right of way, prob fifty feet from the shoulder, placing rock into a ditch to prevent erosion, or so it appeared to me…but they had to have traffic both directions crawling along for that….thought to myself, this is exactly the type of stupid stuff we see in Missouri on a daily basis.

So I arrived at the Museum about 20 minutes later than I should have, and found Tina hard at work with one of the Museum volunteers, moving cabinets around in one of the display rooms to make room for some maps…they also showed me the new cabinets designed and built for the Museum by the Amish folks just north of town and let me tell you, they were very nicely built. They were getting ready to put them to some very good use in all the display rooms there. Tina helped me unload my haul of crystals with her trusty dolly and then I presented her with some more druse quartz for her personal collection and a nice chunk of chalcopyrite as well, from one of the Doe Run Mines up here in Missouri…I had picked it out special for her from a buddy of mine that works at the mines.

After visiting with them a bit and catching up on everything, I headed out to the Eureka Mine to see how it looked. It always fills in over the winter months with alot of heavy mud from the walls and the natural sump will fill in as well. Here is what it looked like after I arrived ten minutes later…

….I`m standing on the south side looking to the north, toward the bridge over Hurricane Creek…and as you can see, alot of mud had drained down into the pit on all sides of it. I walked around to the north side to shoot back to the south…..

…and as you can see, the south side had been filled in somewhat by the dozer sitting near my truck….Bill had Wayne`s crew come out the day before and fill in a bit on a couple of sides. This is also the side, where much of the mud slides down into the pit and covers up the natural sump below….

….and you can see here, it looks like the entire bank just slid down and into the water below.

I called Mike to let him know what it looked like and he was glad Bill had some fill work done, as we had intended to have it done as well. The only problem with it, was that we also intended to have Wayne dig that end out a little to see how far back the saddle with purple fluorite pockets extended back that direction. Oh well, something to work out the next day. After talking to Mike and then to Jeff Deere afterward, I headed to the hotel at Kuttawa because I was starting to get hungry for one of those great tasting steaks at the Oasis Grill next door to the hotel. Earlier in the week, I had talked extensively to both Jeff Deere, of Georgia and Pete Stoeckel of eastern Pennsylvania, about the drive to the Eureka Mine. Jeff planned to get up very early Saturday morning and make the five hour thirty minute drive up…Pete left at midnight Friday morning, with a thousand mile drive ahead of him…told me he was going through West Virginia and would stop at Eubank, Kentucky, and visit with Sharon and Richard Michael, and get some more of their crop of geodes that they harvest each year at their horse farm. Pete said it would make a great pit stop after being on the road all night and day…he got there about noon and then after a few hours of digging out geodes, he drove on down to Pennyrile State Park to set up his campground spot and then headed over to my hotel, the Days Inn, to go to supper with me. He texted me as I was driving to the hotel to check in and let me know he was on the way from the campground. I also got a call after that from a buddy in Paducah, Kayden, who was also driving down to visit and have dinner with me, as he was going to be busy the rest of the weekend making a move to St Louis.

I got checked in and soon after, Pete showed up, no doubt as hungry as I was, after digging for geodes and cracking some open at the horse farm…I explained to him about Kayden, who I figured was stuck in the traffic jam just west of us. and as it turned out, he was… so after he arrived, we all walked over to the Oasis and ordered some delicious food…the atmosphere in there, as always, was great, lots of friendly people chowing down on good food. Normally it gets a little loud in there on a Friday and Saturday night, but we were there much earlier than normal. After a good supper, Pete took off and headed back to the campground to take advantage of the well heated bathhouse to get a shower and get ready for the next day, and Kayden and I returned to my room to catch up on old times. The next morning came early, despite hitting the hay right after the news…I headed over to Miss Neda`s Donut Shop in Eddyville and then grabbed a sausage and egg biscuit before driving on out to the mine…finding Bill had been there just ahead of me and got the pump started…I also saw that Wayne had a newer and smaller trackhoe this year, the larger older one apparently had worn out and he was unable to get parts for it any longer…the only problem with this smaller one was that it didn`t have the reach the older one had and the bucket was a bit smaller.

…..Wayne`s crew of Danny and Mike showed up soon after I did, and then Pete showed up soon after. Jeff arrived right about 8 am, as he had planned on and pulled the maps out that Mike had sent him with the tunnels and shaft information.

Danny was new to us, we had never met or worked with him before,…Mike explained to us that Wayne was letting Danny take on more of the trackhoe work because the rattling around in the seat was beginning to hurt Wayne`s back…after seventy years of digging, I could definitely understand that and I would think Wayne should be able to take days off as often as he wanted to…so we talked to Danny and Mike a bit about what we wanted to do this year with the pit. At some point they were going to need to dig out a containment pond to satisfy the requirements of the DNR, to pump the water into once it became muddy after stirring it up. As they went off to fire up the dozer and trackhoe, Jeff and Pete and I decided on what we were going to do as well.

Danny started by digging out the south side where the saddle was located, so we could check on the extension of it……

….and then he moved down the logging road side of the pit to clean up the bank. Shortly after, the investigators with the DNR showed up and Danny moved over and began digging out the containment pond so that the now muddy waters could be pumped into it….

…and while Danny was digging the pond out, we had Mike move some of the backfill from the tailing pile over into the creek side of the pit to reinforce the creek bank itself and attempt to shut down the water coming into the pit from the creek. This has been a major problem in years past, since the pit now sits below the creek, the creekwater wants to naturally filter through the clay and dirt banks and into the pit, sometimes coming thru the bank in a waterfall or two.

Mike was able to shove a lot of dirt and clay over there while Danny was busy working on the containment pond….and once he finished, we had yet another tailing pile above the pond for rockhounds to explore…

…the other tailing piles we had placed once again, between the logging road by the mine and the pit itself…once Danny finished digging out the pond we had him return to the road side and finish cleaning out the high bank, then move around to the north side and begin expanding the pit in that direction. He began concentrating on the northwest corner first…

….and pretty soon it became evident that he had found an old horizontal tunnel of sorts…first slicing down through and bringing up some old timbers and we began to see changes in color in the mud and clay as well…

..and pretty soon the darker dirt and mud began to collapse downward, leading us to believe it was a horizontal tunnel or shaft at some time…

…and up closer here…the lighter colored stuff looked more like sand but seemed have some stickiness to it like clay too…

…and after about another thirty minutes of digging, we hit the four hour mark and had them stop digging. As Danny was going across the north side of the pit, he was finding no fluorite whatsoever, not to mention that the saddle or bench on that side, just dropped off into nothing at all and basically just disappeared. We certainly weren`t expecting that at all. The last few years we had been inching across the pit and finding luscious purple cubes, occasionally some yellow cubes, galena and sphalerite, and now we were basically finding absolutely nothing coming up in the bucketfuls of dirt and mud. More so than disappointment, we were actually more scared than anything, because this mine and the public digs here are what keeps the Museum and their staff going each year.

After paying Wayne for digging it out for us, we pumped the remaining muddy water into the containment pond and began exploring the saddle and bench to see what we could find. Here is the pit after the digging was done…..

….you can see the bench on the far lower left, full of galena and fluorite pockets last year, and you can see how it just abruptly stops on the far side, just drops off and there is nothing beyond it….Jeff and Pete began working on that bench and tried to cobb it down some, succeeded somewhat, but found very little on, around, or even underneath it…we also checked out the saddle on the south end and found just a few small pockets….

…and after a long day of waiting and digging, even longer for Jeff who got up early and drove up, we packed it in for the day and headed out, except for Pete, who decided to stay til nightfall so he could go up to the Columbia Mine and check out his new blacklight with the hope of finding some fluorescent minerals for some friends of his who enjoy the ” glow in the dark light ” minerals.

Jeff and I headed to the hotel, him to check in and clean up, me to clean up, and then we met over at the Oasis Grill for supper. We had been snacking all day long, but after a few hours of digging in the pit and the tailing piles, that little bit of food was long gone. I was out in front of him when I left and as I neared the top of the hill, I spotted a few whitetail deer in the field on the north side of the road….

…they apparently didn`t like the barrel of my lens sticking out the window of my truck and may have mistaken it for a rifle barrel…they wasted no time in taking off for higher ground…..

…..but soon regrouped at the edge of the field by the wooded area for yet another group portrait…

While waiting for our food to arrive, we discussed what we found today, as well as what we expected to find and yet didn`t find…and we were both very concerned about it…I was sure Pete was as well, he was staying busy to likely keep his mind off it. Jeff told me that he wished he had thought to ask Danny to back off from the north wall and make a trench cut across to see if we could relocate the vein again…see if it was still there closeby….maybe it had just pinched off where we stopped Danny earlier. I suggested that we see if Wayne could come back Sunday morning and dig a trench across there and see if we could relocate it…he was in total agreement so I called Bill and pitched the idea to him…he called Wayne and set it up for us…Wayne agreed to come do the digging even… and we soon felt much better with an improved plan of action and disposition. Supper sure tasted great after that phone call.

We arrived at the mine the next morning bright and early once again, and Wayne showed up about 7:30 and fired up the trackhoe…which by the way, I forgot to mention, is a smaller version than the one he has operated the past several years…in fact, he told us that it got to where he couldn`t find parts for it any longer and had to part it out. This one takes a cubic yard less dirt than the older larger one. He brought a new guy with him this time, another one we weren`t familiar with, and after talking to him for a bit, found out that his father had done quite a bit of digging in the fluorite mines in the area as well. Wayne came over and asked us what we wanted to do, something we really like and respect about him…we pointed out where we wanted him to make the trench cut and so he started on it right away. Once he got back to a certain area, he started hitting solid bedrock about ten feet down and pretty soon, the water started pouring in as well. He began backing up and Pete had to jump in and move his Hummer…good thing he did, cause a few minutes later, Wayne pulled up a huge boulder, it was about ten feet long and three feet thick, and as he was setting it over in the spot Pete had been parked, he took out a dead tree which fell right where Pete`s Hummer had been sitting. Whewww…..that was close. Pete and Jeff took a closer look at the big…excuse me….HUGE boulder, and began trying to cobb it down some to see if there were any cubes on it. I stayed with Wayne and within a few minutes, he had dug down and sliced through the horizontal tunnel that we thought we had spotted over at the edge of the pit, again coming up with timbers perfectly preserved in the clay mud and then slicing down thru that black dirt once again…..

…..only this time, there were chunks of galena and some massive fluorite as well mixed in….plus the collapse was alot more evident this time, too. Water again poured in to the trench cut and we had Wayne widen the cut here just a little more and then we had him stop digging…..here I am zoomed in on the tunnel to see the galena shining at us….

….and that yellowish looking stuff next to it, is actually yellow massive fluorite that was combined with deep purple fluorite down there in the tunnel….here seen closer up….

….well we were elated that we had actually found some more fluorite, even if it was more massive than cubed…we like the cubes more than anything but didn`t find any down in that trench cut anywhere…leading us to believe more exploration needs to be done to find the vein once again. Bill came by to check on us and we showed him what we found, the massive that we found was the purple and yellow combined, but no cubes….he was now as concerned as we were for the future of the Museum and its purpose. He headed back to the Museum and we decided to see what else we could find….I didn`t stick around very long, as I had received a phone call from my Mom, letting me know that heavy snow was falling at home and making its way east across Illinois, so I decided to hit the road and see if I could make it home. Jeff took off shortly after I did and made it home safe and sound, while Pete decided to stick it out a few hours before heading home. He would have to cross the mountains in West Virginia and he figured the longer wait time would give road crews a good chance to clean the roads off before he arrived. He actually made it home safe and sound as well, early the next day, after driving all night long. I hit the snow just west of Mount Vernon, Illinois on I-64, but luckily for me, the roads just stayed wet and the heavy fluffy looking snow just made everything look pretty….

Only had to shift into four wheel drive once I reached the road to my parents house to pick up Missy…their road rarely gets plowed early on….

The following week I had taken off the entire weekend, which gave me the entire week off from Wednesday to Wednesday, so I had more time to pack the truck with more crystals for the Museum`s grab bag adventure at their annual weekend show in June. I was able to take off a bit earlier this time and had Missy with me as well and after unloading the crystals at the Museum again and visiting with Tina once again, I headed to the hotel to get checked in. While at the Museum, Tina told me that a couple from the Atlanta area had been by earlier in the day and toured the museum and were probably staying at the same hotel as I was. Mike called me later in the evening to see if I would like to have supper with him and his wife at the Oasis, and I thanked him, but had already ate and was just about to conk out from the long day. The next morning, I grabbed some donuts at Miss Nedas in Eddyville again and then headed to the Museum to get checked in there and help everyone who was coming for the dig. Mike Streeter and I had sent out emails to everyone that had made reservations for the trip, and we had warned them about the results of the machine dig the weekend before…everyone said they still wanted to come and see what they could find despite this. I had prepared myself for the worse, but as it turned out, the day was a pretty good one for them.

I no sooner pulled into the parking lot and parked next to a dark colored van, rolled my window down and discovered it was Tammy and Todd Bromley from central Michigan…boy did they have a long drive down there. While waiting for the others to show up, Doug Harris and his son came in…Doug is a math teacher at a high school in north central Illinois. He and his son were also interested possibly in the night dig but decided to wait another time for it. Several of them took a brief tour of the Museum while there, led by Fred, one of the Directors, as Bill Frazer was out at the mine getting the pump started for us. I met Fred a few years ago at one of the celebration digs, he is a very nice guy and a great asset to the museum as well, a man of many talents, as he was there to help another member work on the cabinets. Tammy and Todd and I talked to his partner who had family up in central Michigan near them, but he had moved down to the Marion area himself a few years prior from the northeast coastline where the winters are as brutal as Michigan.

After the tour, I took the group outside and gave a short safety talk on the mine and then we headed out to the mine in our vehicles. I called Bill on the way out and he waited for us to arrive, told me it was a muddy mess because Wayne`s crew had come in the day before and filled in our trench cut and stirred up the piles as well. Since I had four wheel drive and no one else did, I was able to drive up the mine road and park in the edge of the woods so Missy would have some shade, but the others had to park in the field across the creek and on the right side……

As soon as they got their boots on and assembled their tools, we met at the edge of the pit and I pointed out the pitfalls to watch out for and the tailing piles to search and then they took off for the piles…..

While many of them worked the tailing piles on the south side, I wandered over to the north side older pile and started finding cubes and small plates all over the place…Todd and Tammy Bromley saw me picking up cubes and plates and came over to check it out and I told them to start looking all over cause there was stuff scattered all over the floor in the mud and in the piles. Pretty soon more of them came over to the north side and began finding some as well. The pump was starting to lower the level of the water considerably by now as well, so it wasn`t long before we were able to check that out too. Mike and his wife found a nice plate, she found it actually, upside down in the mud, we possibly even stepped on it a few times and when she turned it over and discovered cubes, she called Mike over and he promptly took it to the waterfall under the bridge to wash it off. I never did see it but understand it was quite a honey piece and they left soon after.

Pretty soon, many had left before the water level dropped enough to enter the pit, leaving it to Tammy, Todd, David, and myself to find some stuff in the pit. My curiousity got the better of me soon and I climbed down in the pit on the south side saddle to see if I could locate any other pockets in the mud…I began pulling mud from the south backfill wall and soon enough, had pulled some nice cubes out from the mud down under. I gave some of them to Tammy and after about an hour or two, turned the pockets over to her to keep searching in. I had decided to leave by 2 pm and head home, as I had some other things I had to do on Sunday. I gave them some nicer specimens of fluorite before I left and let Bill know that they would be returning on Sunday morning and he told them he would meet them at the Museum at 9 am Sunday.

All in all it was a good weekend as everyone went home happy as far as I knew. While I am concerned for the future of the Museum and the public and private digs there, as many of us are, several of us have pledged our continuing support to Bill Frazer and the Museum for their future and assistance to rockhounds. I told Bill many of us stand ready to help in any way we can, and are ready to respond and assist if needed. I will keep you all updated as future events unfold there and information becomes available.

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

Cleaning out the Dynamite Dogtooth Pocket

Posted on March 6, 2013 by jwj

I returned to the Dynamite Dogtooth Pocket Sunday morning and found it intact and waiting patiently for me to return and clean it out. I had taken the day off from work, Missy and I arriving about 9 am on a fairly pleasant day, it was due to warm up later in the morning to about 38 degrees. I had my heavy coat on when I arrived but soon shed it in favor of something lighter so I could move around inside the cavern pocket.

The photo above shows the roof and far side of the cavern pocket at the opening…when I first climbed back up to it, this time cleaning off the stairs as I climbed back up, then cleared off a level spot for four bags, I set about pulling loose crystals, some druse bubble plates, and a few clusters from the muck below the pocket opening…

…this guy was sitting there on top of the muck fall down from the pocket opening, right in front of me, when I got up there and started digging in from the bottom of the pile and working my way upward…

…and I carefully cleaned out around him before pulling him out…wasn`t sure if he was attached to a plate lurking below the surface or not…as it was, he was pretty much just by himself with a small calcite base attached….

…and if you look close, you can see another smaller one right behind it higher up…..

…I pulled several small clusters and single crystals out of the loose muck and then climbed up into the pocket opening and looked inside. It pretty much looked the same as the last time I was there, some big dogtooths on the roof as well as down on the far side of the cavern wall….I say cavern cause it was pretty much as big as a small cave in there….

…I could have easily crawled in there and still had room to spare…it wouldn`t have been comfy getting poked and stuck by those needles on all sides, but it was definitely roomy. I decided to check out the crystals on the right side first, since I thought there was a possibility that I could damage them if I didn`t take care of them first…good thing I had my hard hat on, since the wind was blowing pretty hard and knocking rocks off the top…here you see this massive cluster of poker chip crystals, covered in dust, sitting next to my hat….

…and above them are a couple of thick plates of bubbles of druse hanging upside down…poised right above them, but luckily still very firmly attached to the roof, otherwise they wouldn`t still be in the photo, I would have removed them. Down below them was the short wall of dogtooth crystals, again covered in a heavy layer of dust and dirt, where that little single guy was located a few minutes before…

…I chipped a few of the more accessible dogtooths off the short wall, mainly ones near the top after raking several loose ones off the top shelf and placing them in the bag…I refer to the smaller single crystals as ” christmas tree ornaments ” cause Docia uses them to make christmas gem trees and use them as ornaments on the trees. Pretty soon I had a bag full of wrapped goodies, and set it down below in between some big rocks so it wouldn`t tip over. I grabbed another bag full of cloths, emptied them out and then reached up on the bottom of the pocket opening and felt around the edges…next thing you know, I am pulling this beauty out of there….

…without any chipping required even…after this one though, I chipped a few more clusters out of that bottom opening wall, and besides the perk of pulling out some beauties, it also created some room for me to work the bottom of the pocket an hour later. After this, I decided to see if I could work on liberating some dogtooths from the roof and far side wall….

…including this nice guy just hanging there waiting to be liberated from confinement and exposure to those harsh Missouri winters….

…and here is another one that was attached to the far side wall….

…very pretty bubbley and sparkley gray druse is all over the inside of this pocket and where the bright orange dogtooth crystals are attached, they really stand out on that type of pretty backdrop. The next photo shows my view from the bottom lip of the pocket opening, down toward the bottom floor of the pocket, about two feet below me….

…and even closer down into the pocket looking toward the bottom of it….

…and finally at the bottom as I saw it that morning….

…and if you look at that big orange crystal sticking up from the bottom center of the photo above, that`s one that I pulled from the muck at the bottom a few minutes later…it was very pretty, and no, I don`t have a photo of it. I do however, have a photo of the cluster that I pulled out of the muck that was located a few inches below it…

…and the next photo documents the progress I am making, two hours after arrival…now have three bags full of wrapped goodies on the floor behind me, the bottom lip of the pocket opening shows chipped out and some crystals removed from the short wall to the right…

…and here are the three bags loaded down with goodies, accompanied by a couple of larger pieces from the short wall of dogtooth crystals….one beach ball sized one on the left and one football sized one on the right, covered by the towel….

…and the beach ball sized cluster up close….

…and another view closer up of the pocket opening…up on the right side, you can see where I had chipped a few clusters away from the wall holding them, but had trouble with that one large cluster of poker chips…they kept breaking off, so I decided to leave them where they were concentrated at….

…and I decided to stop here…three hours into the day, popped open a can of Arizona green tea for lunch and carried a few bags back to the truck, after moving it much closer than where I first parked. Since I also had a ways to carry the bags over uneven ground again, I learned a valuable lesson last week and not only moved the truck closer, but packed the bags about half full for the trip to the truck, then packed them full and freed up a few more bags in case I found more pockets…which….I did. 🙂

After a much needed break, I wandered down the west wall and then down the south wall, and after dodging a few falling rocks and pebbles, I spotted a pocket at the bottom of the wall….

…but I wasn`t prepared for what I saw when I looked inside…it was a dogtooth….. of a different color….

…I walked back over to my bag and grabbed my hammer and chisel and returned to free it, then wrapped it and placed it into my bag and continued along the wall…soon finding this pocket up high….

…and actually it turned out to be a double pocket, side by side….this one on the right more interesting to look at because of the obviously larger crystals at the edge and just inside…

…and that yellow icky gooey stuff on the outside of the pockets…not sure what it is, but it can be quite nasty sometimes when you reach into a pocket and come out with your hand covered in it…gloved hand that is…and here is the pocket on the left side closer up…can see some blast damage on the outside edge….

…I moved on down the wall and soon came up on another pocket, one that had apparently been opened by a recent blast, one that I wouldn`t have to do any chipping to open up at all, merely raking down some loose crystals at first….

..til I could get to these crystal clusters sitting up above the loose crystals in the back of the pocket…I was standing up on my toes trying to reach these guys with my mini mattox…one I am still getting used to after damaging my other one…

…here is a photo below with different color showing the clusters on the left side…and the loose stuff in front…I had to pull them down with the rake in order to get the clusters in the back to loosen up and slide down into my waiting hands….almost needed a bag to scoop them up with cause they came down in an avalanche each time…

…and this last cluster was sitting up high on the right side of the back of the pocket, obviously already with some damage to it…but it came sliding down as well….

the crystals that came from this pocket were a nice honey brown color with dark grey tips after cleaning them up last night. I didnt see any dogtooths in this pocket but it was a nice change from the other two pockets I had worked Sunday. I photographed several of the goodies cleaned up today, and will post a few more as soon as I get them edited up.

Well since I had a good nap earlier today, I decided to go ahead and edit up the photos of the goodies I cleaned up last night, so here they are, hope you enjoy as much as I am….I posted a few on FB as well…

Now a few of the larger clusters I found inside the pocket…..

and some more smaller ones….

52 Single Frosted Dogtooth

A Dynamite Dogtooth Weekend

Posted on February 20, 2013 by jwj

Last weekend I hosted rockhunts at two different locations for members of the MAGS Club, Memphis Archaelogical and Geological Society, based in Memphis, Tennessee…a club that I joined a few years back on the recommendation of rockhound friend Docia. They like to come up here in February to look for druse quartz and this year we added poker chips and dolomite/calcite druse with a trip on Sunday to MFQ, a location they had heard of before, but never been to.

I got up quite early on Saturday morning and dropped Missy off at my parents house, since the location I was taking the members to to look for druse quartz, was new and gets quite muddy, plus there is a water pond there that Missy likes to bound through and comes out soaking wet and covered in red clay mud from head to tail…something I have never figured out since she absolutely seems to hate baths. My mom likes to take a few walks each day and Missy likes to go with her, so I knew it would be a win win for both her and me.

As early as I got up, I was going to have an extra ninety minutes before the club group was scheduled to arrive at the high school, so I drove down to a private quarry farther south that I wanted to check out since I had been told there was a recent wall blasted there for new material. I arrived and made a quick walk around the blast pile, and found what appeared to be an obvious pocket along the wall within a few short minutes. Since I knew I would be pressed for time if I found something good, I didn`t take my camera with me. I started pulling extra rock away from the opening of the pocket and soon started seeing bright orange dogtooth crystals in the muck. I made my way back to the truck and grabbed two more bags and wrapping material, and then returned to the pocket and began removing one dogtooth cluster after another, stopping only briefly to wrap them and place them in a bag. Let me tell you, forty five minutes went by very quickly and soon I had three bags full of crystals…I`ll let you be the judge of what I found with the following photos….taken after I cleaned them up Saturday night….

Some very pretty stuff for sure….but wait til you see what I found the next day….

Sunday morning I got up early and headed south once again, this time to meet the MAGS group, and lead them to MFQ. This time Missy went with me, the quarry has a large open floor and she likes to explore and get some good exercise doing so, plus I never have to worry about her getting muddy at this location. It`s all rock here and even the few waterholes here consist of water and rock only.

About 2 pm, everyone headed home from MFQ, happy with their goodies located there, and Missy and I headed home. Despite getting a good workout in, I decided to take a detour and return to the SSQ before going home. By the time I got to the secret spot, I felt somewhat revived by a good can of Arizona Green Tea and some rest in my comfy truck seat, and since I had at least three hours of daylight left, I opted to drive over and check it out once again…

…the photo above showing the left side of the blast pile…….and the photo below showing the right side of the pile….

…I started walking around the left side and once I came out on the right side of the pile, I glanced across to the south wall and just about fell over in shock….if you click on the photo above and enlarge it, and with your eyes, follow the shadow below the square hole at the edge of the L shaped shadow, you might be able to pick up on the opening of the pocket as quickly as I did….if not you can try to find it in complete shadow in this next photo, about twenty feet above my mini mattox….

and a bit closer….

…with a nice short wall of orange dogtooth crystals on the right side of it as well….more to choose from I guess…. as if the choices presented already, were not enough. ..and even closer as I walked over and climbed up on the slippery slope of loose gravel and saw loose single orange dogtooth crystals laying all over in the mix…

…what caught my eye looking across the way, at first, was that wall of bright orange dogtooth crystals…they just jumped out at me….

….they were even more impressive up close and since some of them were a bit loose, I was able to remove a few of them from a small pocket at the base of that short wall as well…..

After that, I began working my way toward the pocket, starting at the base, mainly because of the extremely unstable material at the base, hundreds of loose single dogtooth crystals floating in and amongst the muck at the base, and it was all sliding downhill and literally into my hands the whole time….

and some to the right at the base of the short wall too….

I cleared off some level areas about six feet to the left to set my first three bags and some wrapping cloths…I didn`t want anything to slide on down that slope and roll down to the base of the wall and get damaged along the way. It was extremely slippery up there the whole three hours, I was constantly trying to clear off areas I could safely stand on without slipping but it was a constant battle to do so, plus I was fighting the loss of time and daylight as it got closer to sunset.

After about thirty minutes of constantly raking down base material and picking up multiple loose crystals, I finally made it to the base of the pocket and began to focus on removing the loose material in the mouth of the pocket itself….

you can see how much matrix rock was sitting on top of the crystals in the mouth of the pocket above…thin sheets of rock and then those heavy chunks in the right hand corner heavily weighing down on the clusters below that cannot be readily seen here…not to mention that big plate of gray bubble druse in the middle, laying face down on top of some huge poker chip crystals…it was like eeney, meeney, miney moe in figuring out what to move first, and unfortunately I didn`t make the best decision the first two times, cause much of it came crashing down into my lap right off the bat…soon I had it stabilized though and was able to gently rake some of the thin loose sheets of rock off the pile a little at a time after that. Here is a closer view of the pocket opening….

The first batch of crystal clusters that I pulled out and sat on the side to be wrapped up are pictured below….

…you can see in the next photo just how loose some of the base material was, after I worked over the pocket at the base of the short wall…

Since I was fighting time and daylight from here on, I didn`t take any extra time to document this clean out process with my camera, even though I had it up there with me. I had to make a few fast trips back to my truck to get more bags and wrapping material as well, and believe me, I didn`t walk back and forth…I ran….and wound up filling ten bags with wrapped goodies, as well as removing six large clusters of bubble druse & dogtooth crystals and two clusters of druse & poker chips…I hand carried the two larger clusters of druse & dogtooth crystals under one arm with a bag of wrapped crystals in the other hand, and it felt like I was carrying a porcupine under my arm each time I made a trip over uneven ground to the truck. I did take photos of these nice clusters after I got them inside my sunroom yesterday and here they are….

this is goodie number two above and below is the other side of it…

and some closeups of this one in greater detail….

The next three photos are of one beautiful cluster of large poker chip crystals that were in the mouth of the pocket with a cluster of dogtooths at the base….

These next two photos show a top view and side view of a yellow bubble druse cluster of poker chips with some dogtooth crystals embedded….

And the next one was pulled from the pocket by its base…when I pulled it out, I was disappointed to see that it had suffered damage on the top side of the huge poker chip crystal, but elated to see the cluster of poker chips at the base that did not appear to be damaged at all….

…and showing it from the back side….

The next two photos show an unusual piece I pulled from the backside of the pocket, just tucked away into a back corner, it had some damage but some different features as well, like the poker chips in an obvious pocket underneath the piece as well as one right smack dab on the bottomside of the piece….

The next few photos show a neat shiney, sparkley gray bubble druse chunk with some poker chips and dogtooth crystals attached, and a buddy said this first photo makes it look like an elephant sitting down….

…I was like…an elephant with how many legs ??? wondered what he had been drinking before he said that….lol…but it def is unusual looking for sure….

So I got all of those out of the pocket and the bags all packed with the smaller wrapped goodies and down to the floor of the quarry and then started making several trips over to the truck and loading it up, as the sun was setting and light was leaving me fast…I said a quick prayer for extended daylight and strength to get all the goodies to the truck and still have enough to drive home on…cause I was getting exhausted really quickly now…and on my last trip to the pocket, I took a few photos of the pocket cleaned out as much as possible…I was too exhausted to try to do anymore and ran completely out of bags and wrapping material too….

this pocket measured about 36 inches across from side to side…and top to bottom was about 30 inches….it was one of the deepest pockets I have ever seen, a person could have literally crawled down into it and had lots of room to spare….

…and I no sooner got in the truck and headed home than I saw this stunning sight when I reached the top of the long hill climbing out of there….

…all in all, a beautiful ending to a great and amazing day….

Rockhunting Last Weekend With MAGS

Posted on February 19, 2013 by jwj

A few years ago I joined the rock and gem club called MAGS, the Memphis Archaelogical and Geological Society, based in Memphis, Tennessee, and each year they like to travel up here to look for druse quartz. Last weekend several members drove up and spent the weekend with me, and I took them to the new druse spot on Saturday, and then to MFQ on Sunday morning. Since this spot is normally very muddy and wet, I left Missy with my parents Saturday morning on my way down.. there is a pond there that she likes to jump into and bound through and usually comes out very covered from her head to her tail in thick mud, something I didnt want to deal with today. I havent figured out yet, why she enjoys that so much but has a problem when it comes to taking a bath and cleaning up.

As I drove south I noticed the temperature was about 15 degrees, so it was def going to be a cold day out there, but at least the weather was going to be clear and sunny too. I had made arrangements to meet the group around 9 am, and I arrived at the meeting spot, just as they were approaching from the east. Betty Marler from the Park Hills Club came with them, and after a few minutes of small talk, we loaded up and drove down to the new druse spot…the skies were blue and sunny, but the wind was just a bit sharp, requiring head cover for sure…I was glad I had my heavy coat on with the fleece lined hood. I pulled into the small parking area and found it had been changed just a bit since I had been there two weeks prior, but we were able to get all the vehicles up into the upper end just fine, and after a few minutes of acquainting everyone with the layout of the area and boundaries, and showing them what they could expect to find, they were soon scattered out all over the area….

I had brought several samples from both locations with me, just in case someone didn`t find some great stuff, but as it was, especially at this location, there was no way anyone could strike out here…like one of the gals said, it was like walking into a jewel box, there was druse glittering all over the place. After everyone started finding some good material, I grabbed a bag and my mini mattox and headed out to look and see what I could find and help them find, as well. I started up the hill in the direction that Paul and WC had taken off to, where the heavily eroded clay dirt areas are….

….and within minutes I started seeing some smokey colored druse pieces in the bottom of the erosion ditches, just laying on top of the clay dirt waiting to be found. Since the temps had dipped so low the night before, the normally soft clay dirt was frozen in most areas and walking was now easy. I looked to the north and spotted a few hunters over on the heavily eroded west slope above the pond….

I soon had my bag filled with some pretty smokey colored druse bubbles and a nice medium sized plate that I found sitting upside down, and I returned to my truck, others having returned to their vehicles for a break. Mike and Ann, from the North Little Rock area, joined me at the truck bed and were soon looking at the samples I had brought along……I had told everyone there to just help themselves to anything they wanted in the bed of the truck…in addition to the samples, I had loaded up four big boxes of grab bag material for their April Show as well. Those boxes included some beautiful crystals from my Arkansas quartz trips and Kentucky fluorite trips the past couple of years and several of the members were enjoying sifting through them as well. After a few minutes of break and a can of Arizona Green Tea, Mike and I headed up the west slope above the pond to see what else we could find. A few who had already been up there said they were finding some great druse in different colors and Mike had been up the north side and saw some spots where smokey colors seemed to be heavily concentrated. I grabbed two bags and started around the front of my truck and immediately spotted some large deer tracks in the clay dirt….

…and soon caught up with Mike, and fairly quickly we were finding smokey colored druse plates all over the place….he wasn`t sure if he ever did locate that one area that he spotted earlier, but by the time we finished looking all the way up the hill, it didn`t matter as we both had filled several bags full of bubbles and plates. We even found a few pretty big ones that he and Ann could take home for yard rocks… others were roaming the west slope as well looking for various colors and sizes….

During one of the breaks, I had found out that Mike worked for Union Pacific Railroad, and at one time was working out of the same building I had worked in, downtown in St Louis, several years ago before they moved many of the St Louis operations to the new building in Omaha. I had worked for five years as an emergency response management telecommunicator with UP, and loved my job there…as I told Mike, had they stayed in St Louis, it`s likely I would have still been working for UP.

After a few more hours, we decided to drive over to another area where we have searched in years past and found several larger pieces. After guiding them to that spot, I walked down to the creek at the bottom of the hill and didnt see much of anything worthwhile to pick up and carry back. Even the creek area didnt have much sparkle, and the leaves were very heavy in the woods there, making it difficult to see or find anything in the area.

I took off a few minutes later to head home, checking with WC on what time and where to meet them Sunday morning to take them to MFQ the next morning. Betty wasn`t going to make this trip with them, as they would all be driving home to Memphis from MFQ, so wanted to make sure they knew how to get there from Park Hills where they were staying.

Sunday morning bright and early, Missy and I got up and on the road headed to MFQ, this time taking Missy with me since she likes to run around the floor of the quarry and never gets muddy there. As we left Sullivan, I looked southwest and saw this beautiful sunrise….

It was a good thing I stopped to shoot it along the interstate when I did, because within five minutes, it had completely faded away and then twenty minutes later, the skies looked completely different….

Missy and I led them to the floor of the quarry and stopped at the first bluff right below the entrance….

…where I met some of the members that weren`t able to come up on Saturday, opting instead to drive up for the quarry trip…Caroline and Matthew Lybanon, and Neville Mayfield, who I have talked to several times by email but never met in person….I explained to everyone where they could dig into the bluff and what they could expect to find…again showing them samples I had brought along from this quarry, so they would know what to look for. I also pointed out the other areas of the quarry floor and showed them the areas of the walls to stay away from, clearly marked with blue spray paint…these are areas of the wall where rocks and gravel frequently fall down from above and so are unstable for a close approach. I pointed out the new collecting area…

…which looked about the same as the last time I was there a few weeks ago in January….

WC and I drove over to the newer area to look around and see what we could find while most everyone else set about surface collecting or digging into the bluff wall to see what pockets of druse and poker chips they could locate. We were soon joined by Ann and Cornelia and soon began finding several small green and chocolate colored poker chip crystals, some wrapped in matrix with dolomite druse…it was obvious someone had worked some pockets there recently and apparently left quite a bit of good material behind after high grading…which was fine with everyone there cause they all liked what we were finding. After a couple of hours, more hunters started drifting over to the newer location after working the small bluff as much as they could. Soon after, I climbed up into the crevice area to see if I could locate anymore pockets….

While I didnt locate any pockets along the left side of the wall by the crevice, I spotted a nice pocket up above the center of the nose, and was scraping loose gravel away from what looked like a stepping area to climb up to it, when a hole opened up on the area I was scraping…within moments, I pulled out a plate of crystals and announced a pocket found…soon I had a crowd of hunters looking for crystals gathering fast….Mike came over and helped me with his prybar and soon we were pulling a few plates of crystals out of the shallow pocket. There were also some bigger crystals sitting on top of the rock, so we were able to chisel those out as well. I pointed out the pocket of dark gray poker chips above, that I was climbing up to and once up there, determined I was going to need a chisel and hammer, so Mike stuck around and assisted me with the tools and then climbed up and held on to the chunks of crystals while I hammered them out of their rocky location. They came out in three pieces, in good shape, and he was able to hand the bigger two pieces down to Neville who then handed them off to others. All in all we were able to find and extract some very pretty crystals from a few pockets and everyone was happy with their goodies. We spent the last hour dividing up my grab bag material into a few vehicles that were headed home to Memphis and resting up. I provided everyone with road information and they all took off about 2 pm headed south. Missy and I drove over to check out an older pocket that I had worked on many times before, but since I was a bit tired at this point, I decided to head north and check out the secret spot before heading home. See the next story on that amazing dogtooth stop. 🙂

JWJ Rocks

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Spectacular Dogtooth Crystals and Clusters

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Guided Druse and Poker Chip Hunt, April 2013

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Cleaning out the Dynamite Dogtooth Pocket

A Dynamite Dogtooth Weekend

Rockhunting Last Weekend With MAGS