Rocks
My Journey
Graves Mountain, GA
My partner decided to take us to Graves Mountain, GA one weekend to mine quartz. The mine there is only open a few weekends a year and we had never gone rock hounding before. So, we took what we thought we would need and we were off.
Graves Mountain is known as a place to find large, multiple twinned rutile crystals; rutile, lazulite, pyrophyllite, kyanite, hematite, pyrite, ilmenite, muscovite, fuchsite, barite, sulfur, blue quartz, quartz crystals, and microcrystals such as woodhouseite, variscite, strengite, phosphosiderite, cacoxenite, crandallite. We did not find all of that, but we did find some quartz. A couple of the larger specimens are in use as a back drop in some of the pictures we use to market our products. A few of the stones made their way into jewelry.
We worked hard that day swinging hammers and chipping away at the mountain.
Diamond Hill Mine, SC
Soon after the Graves Mountain trip, we took another day trip to go rock hounding in South Carolina at Diamond Hill Mine.
Diamond Hill Mine is known for skeletal quartz as well as amethyst, milkey and smokey quartz. On occasion, guests may also find aquamarine, garnet and epidote. Again, we did not find all of these but we did find some cool specimens including some that are also used in our marketing photos.
This trip was a lot more about digging and sifting dirt than swinging a hammer. We got very,very, dirty.
Trade Shows
Most of my finds come from trade shows. I enjoy the hunt either way but the lack of hard labor, mud, and dirt is definitely a plus. Also, there is shade and air conditioning most of the time.
