It's time for that first field trip report of 2006. It's been so long since I've written one, I forgot how to type. We started the M.A.G.M.A. season off with a classic Georgia locality, Graves Mountain. I had arranged a three dig for our club with Jr. Norman, the caretaker for the site. This is the perfect time of year to visit Graves, not to hot, the weather was just right for digging. A few of us met Friday morning and headed to the site. We stopped at Jr's garage to fill out the release forms and he showed us a cool hematite crystal that a woman found during his last three day event in the fall. She later sold the piece to Jr.
Graves Mountain hematite crystal. (First crystal of its kind documented)
We headed to the mine. John D. and I headed down the lower road to see what they had done with the lazulite pit. When we got there, the workers were on site with some heavy equipment.
This is what's left of the old lazulite pit. We used to find double terminated crystals up to two inches long at this pit.
Well, we're not going to let a little thing like two feet of fill dirt stop us! John and I began searching the one area that they left alone, a drainage ditch which ran next to the old pit. It wasn't long before John had picked a beautiful piece of lazulite in matrix.
After poking around the old lazulite area for a while, we decided to take a stroll up the backside of the mountain to see what was there.
A view from the top of Graves Mountain.
A view into the upper pit.
John and I snuck up on Rich and Lee digging in the woods. |
