New to forum - from South Carolina

[gkl88]

Hi y'all ! ;D

We live about 25 miles north of Columbia, SC. and I am relatively new to this (specifically as a hobby)even though I always seemed to have had an interest in noticing interesting rocks since I was a kid :-)

As far as equipment, I am trying to do the best I can on a tight budget, I have a small inexpensive battery operated (uses 4 AA batteries) 4W lamp that has tubes for both 365nm and 254nm, and a filter for the 254nm, as well as clear safety glasses.

I also have a Gallium Indium Nitride 365 Nm UV 9 LED flashlight that uses 3 AAA batteries (just got it recently so I haven't had a chance to use it much).

I live on 1 1/2 acres of ground that was probally all wooded area as recently as about 10 years ago and I have found a lot of quartz rocks, some fairly large, also a few of what might be meteorites, but I'll have to check into it further, they look simular to some pictures I have seen online of meteorites and they do attract a magnet on a string.

Other hobbies include astronomy (2 small scopes and some binoculars), learning piano and guitar, vegetable gardening. (I never seem to have the time I would like to spend on my hobbies, but I try to squeeze in some time now and then, the garden gets the most time out of necessity :-)

I would like to find some gold on the quartz as I have read that where there is gold there is often quartz, but simply having quartz does not guarantee there being gold also.

I have some questions about making a homemade 254nm uv lamp using a UV lamp from an old water purifier, but I'll post that in a seperate thread.

Thanks for all the info everyone shares in this forum, it is helpful !

Gary

[nichwhitt]

Gardener, rock hoarder and star-gazer myself. Hope to check out the eclipse in a bit, only partial here in MN.

Welcome!

[gkl88]

Thanks !

I have an Edmund "Astroscan" 4" reflector I got a long time ago at a discount price, also have a humble 60mm refractor.

I'll have to take some pics of the possible meteorites and post them in the "can you identify" section to see if anyone thinks they might be.

We saw about 6 deer around our garden this evening, but the fence around the garden seems to be keeping them out

[rockshine]

gkl88, the fence will keep them out until they decide to get in. They can probably jump an 8 ft fence from a stand-still . Some state agriculture pages say to install an electric fence, then bait it with peanut butter. An alternative they recommended is to mix a few eggs in water, then spray the veggies about every week- ten days. What does this have to do with rocks? It keeps you from getting trampled by the deer herd-hoard while looking for arrowheads in your garden.

[leonardo]

I live in Saluda....off of Mine Creek....the quartz around here does not have gold in it...also the lack of black sand tells me there is no gold...allthough going west of here off of 378 there are a couple of gold mines and McCormick was the second largest producer of gold in SC. I collect rocks, bottles ,artifacts etc. Have a metal detector, gold pan and love going out looking for anything...was going to go out today but I have to get stuff done around here...so I can head for the treasure coast in Fla. next week..

[gkl88]

Recently I was going out in the yard and I heard a snort - I had startled a deer which ran back into the woods that border our property, thanks for the caution - I do try to watch out I don't get too close that they come towards me rather than run away

I have 10 foot pvc pipe vertically posted around the fence to extend the height up to 10 feet high with a couple horizontal rows of heavy string with pieces of shiney aluminum pie pans to make it very visible - which also helps keep the birds away.

Another way my garden is related to rocks - there is the tip of a huge bolder near the center of the garden that seems way to huge to move by hand even if I dug down far enough so I just plant around it ;D

There's another huge bolder sitting on the surface of the ground just off the edge of our property in the woods.

I was amazed at all the big pieces of quartz I found in areas of my yard so I will probally try some digging in some areas to see what I can find. (probally not in the smaller front yard where it is a lawn, but a lot of my 1 1/2 acres is more wild - weedy, uneven sloping down towards the woods part of which is on my property, so digging in the "wild" areas shouldn't bother my wife like digging in the front lawn might ;D

[gkl88]

I live in Fairfield county about 25 miles north of Columbia, I have not noticed any black sand around here, but there are no creeks of any large size really close by my property.

I read that a very long time ago there was a gold mine in Fairfield county as a gold vein ran thru the county so that gives me some hope even without the black sand

I just remembered hearing in the news recently about an old gold mine near Kershaw SC that they are working towards trying to reopen - I just did a search and found a link - it is called the Haile gold mine -

www.hailegoldmineeis.com/

[rockshine]

A few years ago, a company proposed doing extensive gold recovery via strip mining in South Carolina, but I don't remember the exact location. It seems there is an abundance of gold, but so finely divided that it can't be panned or sluiced, so I guess the recovery would be by leaching or flotation.