Fieldtrip Report:

Lake Douglas Tennessee,
February 26th, 2005,
Official Fieldtrip:

Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association

Hello members, as always another fantastic trip today, the weather was perfect, especially for this site, when the sun is shining it makes spotting the little Douglas Diamonds easy. We met at the Silver Armadillo at 9:00 a.m., there were already several members present when I arrived including our newest member Tom Wright, welcome to the club Tom!, we proceeded to the site, on the way we met up with our M.A.G.M.A. member Wolfy and his friend, when we arrived at the collecting location we met with Drew, Tate and Andrea who had already arrived and were searching the dry lakebed for crystals. Lake Douglas is known for the literally millions of small well formed quartz crystals that resemble the Herkimer Diamonds from New York, we call these "Douglas Diamonds", they range in size from pinhead up to over an inch. There is a variety of other material to be collected at this lake as well.

Drew and Tate taking a break.

We all headed off in different directions to scour the lakebed.

Searching for crystals.

We started the day at our usual location hunting for the small crystals, agate and chert.

We all found small knapped shards of chert covering the ground. The crystals at this location were much larger than at our usual spot, and there is a variety of nice cuttable agate to be found.

"Eye agate"

Pieces of knapped chert covered the ground.

Above two pics: some of the material collected looked like petrified wood like this piece, the outside is round and resembles a limb, but the inner pattern is questionable?

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