Fieldtrip Report:

Diamond Hill Mine,
Antreville, S.C.
Documentary Report,
Smoky Amethyst Crystals,
October 21st-November 2005

Posted 1-11-06: heres a pic of another outstanding crystal cluster specimen from the pit, still working on the big plate 8^)

Posted 1-14-06: The big plate is finished, the below two pics show it in its new cabinet and a closeup, there are a few dings on the backside where the smaller crystals are, I have even thought of breaking it down, the front half is about perfect, but it does look awesome put together.

Big smoky plate in the big plate cabinet.

Posted 1-16-06: below is a pic of a specimen I salvaged from a friend, this plate was originally around 12" x 12", most of the outer crystals were damaged by either digging or the trackhoe, fortunately, the huge center crystals and a few of the surrounding crystals survived the damage. I removed all the outer damaged pieces, reducing the size of the piece a bit, but it is much more appealing now 8^)

Monster crystal in perfect shape.

One of the unique things about this piece is a spot on the backside where a huge crystal had broken off the plate when it was forming, during the late stages of crystalization, there was some type of movement in the pocket which caused the large crystal to break off, however, the quartz continued to grow for some time afterwards and eventually repaired the break with hundreds of micro crystal faces, a very cool addition to the piece:

Self repaired spot where a large crystal had been.

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