Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm Posts: 2667 Location: South Dakota
Made a trip ot to east central GA to do some collecting at Jackson Crossroads yesterday. Boar4d mamber gsellis(George) was able to come along and try to score some purp.
If it wasn't for agriculture or livestock then the whole of east central, GA would be forest.
Wilkes county-cleared areas between large patches of forest
The story goes and I think there is some truth behind it was, a local many years ago made moonshine. When he was either digging a pit for his still or burying jugs of moonshine he discovered amethyst in the ground.. That is the story..take it for what it's worth I guess...
Just a little trail that leads to a small 2 acre cleared area in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere
Here is the pic George gave me crap about..it's just a pic of the woods..it's to show what it looks like in all directions around the mine..for miles
Here is the mine..as you can see it is filled with water to a depth of 20 feet..it's an open pit mine..it will have to be pumped out in October when they start mining again. Back when the previous owner owned the mine he pretty much had to dig down 15 feet to collect scores of clusters and amethyst crystals. The digging was easy through saprolitic granite and decayed rock. Now the mine has a total depth of 40 feet and they are inti very hard granite. The amethsyt were only found in three vertical tubes that shot pretty much in a straight line from below to the surface. there would be small offshoot but the real good stuff had to be chased in those tubes.
Lots of water..takes 36-48 hours to pump out
Hard dirt baked in the GA sun..hard to tell in this pic but the dirt has a whiteish color to it so when the sun is out in full force it hits the ground and gets reflected back into your eyes..makes it very bright
Here are some pics of a few ammy's found...this was a large ball of pocket clay..it's white and yellow with a consistancey like Play-doh
You can see there is actually 2 crystal faces peeking out
This giant ball of pocket clay produced maybe 10+ crystals..most were small but quite a few were double terminated
Here is a pretty decent one peeking out of the white clay
If I can't get gsellis(george) out there with me during summer then this is probably the only other person you will see out there. This is my buddy ben..we have been digging together for a couple years now. ben doesn't play games when it comes to finding amethyst..he does no digging ..he only break rocks and usually multi-ton rocks. he shoots for the good ones still in-situ. Pretty much the only person who will be out here breaking rocks for hours in the middle of July and August
Looks like he has something there...
What have we here...looks like an ammy in pocket
What looks to be a strong purple turns out to be a light purple and flattened crystal..it will get vyou a lot of times..when in the shade of a pocket or dirt a light purple ammy will look like the rickest grape jeely amethyst..once exposed to light you se it is not as dark as you hoped.
Crystal didn't turn out as we hoped....
Oh well all is not lost..looks to be a unique DT(double terminated) with two points. Ben was happy with it. You never know when breaking rocks..the pocket could pinck right off or open up into a large area full of sweet amethyst crystals..you have tyo study the rocks and determine the path you need to take to break the rock lest you smash some crystals..it's somewhat like a surgeon disecting the rock
Boy it's getting hot..i wonder where George is at...headed to the car and some shade
Here is george and I(well i am taking pic) chillin' in the shade..swapping stories and checking to see what we found
Time to go...
As we were leaving i noticed a few folks at the church, on the road that leads out to JXR , about 1000 yards away. We stopped and asked if they would mind if I walked on there property behind the church. "Sure, no problem", they said. took a little jaunt into some heavy woods looking for the old Tiffany & Co. amethyst mine..Tiffany was supossed to have mined amethyst very close to present day JXR and the location was to be behind the old church..looked around for about 20 minutes, found some exposed rock but it ws ust solid granite..nothing real promising..might try a different direction next time
An old grave in the church graveyard..1860's
Here is the take for the whole day..some cleaning still required
Some of the better ones
1)Facetgrade crystal
2)Sweet little crystal with a piggybacker
3)
4) a pretty cool DT with smokey edges
5) a nice sized double pointer
6) probably my fav. a sweet cluster with DT
Thanks for looking
_________________ MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
ya know amethystguy it is hard to believe. Hollywood would have us believe that making little ones out of big ones (in the hot Georgia sun is hard labour suitable only for Georgia Cons. when you and gsellis are out there doing it and telling us how much fun ya had *shaking head*
_________________ A Chinese proverb says "Gold is valuable, Jade is Priceless."
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 8:32 am Posts: 1730 Location: Suwanee, GA US
It is hard work wolf. I left with a headache from the sun at about 4. I found 2 pieces to cut that will be rose de france color. I also have to pieces to cut on commission from some folks that brought their daughter/niece to the mine for her birthday from Florida. Best guess is 2 8-10mm SRBs from material that is water clear and purple veils throughout.
love the pictures, amguy, lol, even if george gave you a hard time of the picture on the way to the jxr mine. i imagine it did get hot out there mighty quick!! nice finds, though!!
were you, ben, and george the only folks at the mine??
where's gsellis' lil' green wagon and your "mining" bag?
enjoyed reading a lot of history on jxr-was not aware that tiffany & co. mined ammies near the jxr mine site. nor did i know some guy hiding his jugs of moonshine found the first amethyst at the jxr mine. lol!! thanks for sharing that info with us, too!!
Sweet trip!!
I would have loved to go with you guys!! I have seen some amazing stuff from the Jackson's crossroads mine. Someone in Franklin, North Carolina had dug some amethyst quite a while ago that had such a beautiful red color to it. I was lucky enough to get some nice material from an old timer in Arizona that had dug it himself there but only a few pieces of it have the red and most is very zoned. Beautiful nonetheless.
Best,
TTrouble
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 6:39 pm Posts: 24 Location: Spartanburg SC USA
MAGMA sounds interesting. I am vaguely remembering reading something, probably in an old Lapidary Journal, about an amethyst dig actually in a pond somewhere in the Due West SC area. Since you are the amethyst guy thought you might know something about it. Can't find the reference now but seemed to be something about Smithsonian grade material??? Know anything about this site?
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