Post by dreadpirate on Dec 11, 2011 22:58:02 GMT -5
I'm cross-posting this from the MAGMA forum as I was able to access that forum first, but I thought others might want to see this here.
I'll use this as my MAGMA introduction post. HI! My name is Stephen Robertson (aka Dread Pirate Robertson) out of Huntsville, AL. As a kid, I was a major rockhound, a hobby fed by my geologist father. I lost touch with the hobby when I left for college and now years later, the flame has been reignited. I've been scouring the internet looking for great places to visit and came upon MAGMA. The mantra '99% digging and 1% talk' strikes true to my heart and its clear you guys and gals aren't just talk. I'm ready to dig!
My first stop restarting my rock collection was a childhood favorite. The Morefield Mine in Amelia, VA. I've found its grown a lot more popular than I remember, and thus a lot more picked over. I think I had a better garnet haul this time though. Of course we brought back amazonite...its everywhere! We also found topaz, amethyst shards, a few mica samples for completion, and even a couple more uncommon pieces for the mine... such as a very small beryl crystal section.
My local research paid off. I found that there are geodes sitting in creeks about 20 miles northwest of Athens. With only about an hour drive, it makes for a quick trip. The geodes are mostly filled with calcite crystals and aren't very large or colorful, but its local!
After seeing the MAGMA site reports for Jackson Crossroads Amethyst mine, my fiancee all but strong-armed me into making that our next trip. It was a hard dig to find any amethyst. We were there about 2 hours before we found the first piece, but after that, things got a lot better and we were able to home in on some better spots to dig.
Note: Anyone visiting in the next couple weeks is bound to find some good stuff. We dug out several big holes and I'm sure we missed almost all the amethyst that we pulled from the ground... next time I'll bring a screen!
I'll use this as my MAGMA introduction post. HI! My name is Stephen Robertson (aka Dread Pirate Robertson) out of Huntsville, AL. As a kid, I was a major rockhound, a hobby fed by my geologist father. I lost touch with the hobby when I left for college and now years later, the flame has been reignited. I've been scouring the internet looking for great places to visit and came upon MAGMA. The mantra '99% digging and 1% talk' strikes true to my heart and its clear you guys and gals aren't just talk. I'm ready to dig!
My first stop restarting my rock collection was a childhood favorite. The Morefield Mine in Amelia, VA. I've found its grown a lot more popular than I remember, and thus a lot more picked over. I think I had a better garnet haul this time though. Of course we brought back amazonite...its everywhere! We also found topaz, amethyst shards, a few mica samples for completion, and even a couple more uncommon pieces for the mine... such as a very small beryl crystal section.
My local research paid off. I found that there are geodes sitting in creeks about 20 miles northwest of Athens. With only about an hour drive, it makes for a quick trip. The geodes are mostly filled with calcite crystals and aren't very large or colorful, but its local!
After seeing the MAGMA site reports for Jackson Crossroads Amethyst mine, my fiancee all but strong-armed me into making that our next trip. It was a hard dig to find any amethyst. We were there about 2 hours before we found the first piece, but after that, things got a lot better and we were able to home in on some better spots to dig.
Note: Anyone visiting in the next couple weeks is bound to find some good stuff. We dug out several big holes and I'm sure we missed almost all the amethyst that we pulled from the ground... next time I'll bring a screen!
, Glad to hear you've been bitten by the 
