Fieldtrip report:
Grossular Cinammon Garnets,
Madison County, N.C.,
October 12th, 2004_________________
Hello members, we had a great fieldtrip today to collect the rare grossular cinammon garnets in Madison County, I met with Curtis Allen and John D. at the Armadillo parking lot at 9:00 this morning. Once at the location we hiked the trail to the outcrop and began to extract the gems!
John Deney ready to operate!
John and Curtis, happy as a pig in pig stuff!
This Hover Fly came by to watch us dig.
No, I did'nt pull his wings off for fun, this is a pic of him hovering , his wings move so fast you can't see them.
Most of the material we collected was covered with a black organic soil and it was hard to tell what we were getting, so we did the proper thing and hauled all the rocks back home to be inspected. When I got home I broke out the pressure washer and cleaned my goodies:
This section of garnet crystal is the largest I have ever seen from this location.
This nice cluster of perfect crystals was almost completely hidden in dirt, notice the nice green epidote crystal at the bottom of the garnets.
This piece was my favorite find of the day, it is covered with deep root beer colored gemmy garnets, the specimen measures 6" x 4".
Closeup of garnets.
Another great MAGMA fieldtrip!
