Fieldtrip Report:

Walker Creek Kyanite,
Buncombe Co., N.C.,
Crabtree Emerald Mine,
Mitchell Co., N.C.
May 26-29, 2006

photos by: Lee Fleming, Pat Cummings, Rick Jacquot

Sorry Gene, time to remove the overburden!

I saw several very nice big matrix pieces come from the dig, it is nice to have a foot long, inch thick crystal of N.C. kyanite in your collection, but something that is harder to find is the highly crystalized kyanite that can be faceted, this is a small one I found:

Another rare thing is a garnet I brought home, I popped a rock open to find some kyanite crystals, the rock also contained one very gemmy garnet crystal about 1/4" in size, I whittled the piece down to wrap and take home, I have seen many nice almandine crystals and the well formed black crystals, the suprise came when I cleaned this piece at home and got it in a light, it is not almandine but a very gemmy crystal of grossular cinammon garnet!, this is the first time I have ever heard of this type of garnet coming from this location, maybe a new discovery, I have never seen any other reference to it from Walker Creek. This will give people another reason to collect at this great site, i'm sure this was not the only one:

Another report to document the events of the greatest rockclub anywhere, I hope you enjoyed it.

 

 

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