Fieldtrip report:
Ray Mica Mine,
Yancey County, N.C.,
October 9th, 2004__________________
Hello all, well it's offically the end of the Ray Mine Flood Series of reports, those were the reports where we would walk the creek and pick up crystals all day without having to dig due to the flood, the club made yet another trip to the site Saturday and I actually had to scratch around a little to find specimens. Dave Hart and I dug in a good location, we were joined later by John D. and Chris Moss, Steve and Thomas Davis and Steves Son were present as well as David(Crash). We all found a lot of nice material, the mine has been visited by about every rockhound in the area since the flood. Dave L. was there again yesterday and said that Appalachain State had a fieldtrip there with some of their students. I think it's time to start hunting the more elusive minerals from the Ray again, Curtis Allen was talking about some nice size monazite crystals, we are going for them next time, can't complain about the beryl though, found these pieces Saturday:
This is an interesting 2" beryl in matrix fused with quartz.
Garnets can be found at the Ray, this 8" matrix specimen is covered with small 1/4" well formed gem almandines.
You can still find the smaller crystals in the creek without digging.
This 1.5" translucent blue/green crystal was wedged between two rocks in the creekbank.
White beryl is uncommon at the Ray, I found this nice 1.5" crystal by digging in the creekbank.
This translucent blue/green double terminated crystal 1.5" x 1.5" was under a rock I moved to sit on!
All in all another great day at the Ray.
