Fieldtrip Report:

GLENDON PYRITE DIG, STANDARD MINERALS COMPANY, GLENDON, NC,
April 22, 2006

by: Lon Bush, Bev Rogers

The pyrite dig at Glendon turned out to be an interesting and rewarding trip. Unfortunately, being a relatively new MAGMA member, we just didn't know who was who. If there were other MAGMA members there--we didn't know or recognize them. As it turned out, there wasn't much converstaion going on anyway, as most everyone was hard at work searching for pyrite.

Our trip started at around 8pm Friday in Tampa. The 11 hour drive to the site lasted all night, with us pulling up to the quarry at 7:15AM Saturday morning.

There was quite a crowd gathered outsite the gate, my guess is around 100 people, all waiting for the moment to get inside and start. Thunder accompanied our wait as gloomy skies were getting darker by the minute. Just before 8AM, as it started to sprinkle, the gates were opened, and everyone drove down into the quarry.

After what seemed like forever, we had finally unpacked all our collecting gear and followed the lead of everyone else who had already started.

The dark skies didn't allow us to get a shiny reflection from the pyrite, so it was tough going for a while. Bev found her first piece at about 8:45AM. Although I still hadn't seen anything, I kept looking, digging here and there. It started raining, so it was out with the rain coats.

Luckily the ground remained dry as it didn't rain too bad, and we continued our search. You could tell who had been to this site before, they just went right into the hills and started digging.

After about 1 and a half hours, Bev still had the one and ONLY piece of the morning.
I was getting a little frustrated, she wanted a drink and suggested that I go back to the truck and bring us some drinks, and also get the metal detectors. We had brought them just in case, but really didn't expect to use them. We just really didn't have time to use them anyway...it was only 4 hours, I thought we were better off just digging.
We moved to a different location and had excellent luck. I found a nice piece of pyrite in the dirt waiting right there for me. I picked it up and kept looking. I noticed that the dirt area between Bev and I had a few little areas of rust color to them (that's what your really have to look for--the rust stains), so I started slowly digging in the dirt with my hands. Another piece! Very good! I kept digging more, then another, and another, and another, and another. They were small at first and then got larger. I handed the pieces to Bev and she put them in the bucket. I told her to come down to me and help me dig. We were both trying to keep from sliding down the hill as it started to rain again, and the rain made the hillside very slippery.

For about 90 minutes we dug in an area of about 3 feet by 2 feet and only got down about 18 inches--and we filled up 2 buckets.

At noon it was raining hard . . . and time to go. I didn't care about the rain. I wanted to get as much pyrite as I could. People around us were packing up and heading out. It was time to call it a day. We stopped, gathered up our things, and found out very quickly that a bucket FULL of pyrite is extremely heavy not easy to carry out of a sticky muddy talc pit. Lots of people were getting stuck in gushy sticky mud talc about 12 inches deep or more. Boots are a must here!!

We loaded up the truck with our goodies and tools and got ready to leave. I didn't have time to get my muddy boots off. So, I put some plastic bags over my boots as not to track all the mud inside the truck. We left the site, and traveled to a rest area nearby where we were able to change into dry clothes and shoes.

We had a great time and learned a lot from the experience. We can't wait until next dig. . . rain or shine! See ya there!

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