Fieldtrip report:
Buck Creek ,
Clay County, N.C.
November 27th, 2004_________________
Hello members, we had a fun, but cold time at Buck Creek yesterday, as you know we had cancelled the camping trip till later this month and had made it a day trip for Saturday. I met with Troy and Grant Saturday morning and headed to the Buck Creek area, there we met up with John D., none of the other members had ever been above the Big Shaft Mine to the old Big Shaft open pit area, I took them up there to hunt for the blue/gray corundum that is abundant in this area, on the way we stopped to view the old Big Shaft, as always this is a good photo op but not a place to collect, the mine is extremely dangerous:
After a pic or two we headed up the mountain to the open pit area. After only a few minutes we were finding some good size material, Grant found a blue/gray chunk that weighed at least 8 pounds and another that was over 2 pounds, I picked up this violet/pink colored 2 pound chunk on the surface,
After an hour or so at the Big Shaft, we headed down and on to other places on the mountain, we located a couple of unworked cuts that looked as if nobody had been there in years, again it was only a few minutes before we were finding some nice material. I found one nice specimen which is basically almost a solid brick of corundum, it is mixed with a zoisite matrix rock but is around 90% corundum, it measures 10" x 8" x 3" thick, and weighs 15 pounds.
I thought I had found the big one at this location, but Grant, with a little persistance found yet another large piece, his piece was also almost all corundum but weighed near 25 pounds. After lugging our finds back to our vehicles we decided to have our 3 day camping trip later in December. I'm sure with a little time we may haul out a few hundred pounds of this material.
See you there, Rick
