FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Scott LaBorde]

Very impressive. You indeed found crystallization. That vug of crystals is a good sign. When you find something like that you can assume that there will be more vugs nearby. When/if you find a large vug you have the potential of getting some fantastic floaters, double terminated crystals, or completely re-healed specimens that will be a real treat. Good work!

[Justin297206913]

The last 2 pictures are the surface rock that is about 5' from where the crystalized rock was found. How does it look from the surface? Is the black a good sign?

[Justin297206913]

Also, with the large rock having crystallization being somewhat surfaced, how deep, generally speaking, would more be?

[vic rzonca]

[Scott LaBorde]

The black is just an iron/manganese oxide and or algae on the rock. The stain is not indicative of anything special. It is difficult to tell if that rock has been moved there or is near in situ. If that rock is near or is part of the source vein and has signs of crystallized vugs on it, then it is a good sign. The rock with the vug you found is definitely a good sign. Any more quartz around where that one came out? If you're curious to find more, I would explore more around where you found the vug.

[Justin297206913]

There was a ton of small pieces of quartz around the huge rock pictured. It had somewhat surfaced. Dig deeper or close by near the surface?

[vic rzonca]

Justin, looks like the quartz pocket is packed with the red clay common in quartz veins in Arkansas. Look for, and don't overlook areas of this filling, sometimes it's hard to see what you've got, very sticky stuff. There was a video on the Crystal Springs web site that showed quartz crystal extractions in this red clay in Arkansas. At any rate, it goes without saying, dig where the quartz is, don't dig where there are no pockets. ;-)

[Justin297206913]

Vic the only problem is the whole area, 20 acres is covered in quartz from dime sized to car sized. No bs. Lol

[vic rzonca]

The next thing to do is a careful examination of the accessible quartz to discover if it has a definite and obvious crystal structure, or are you looking at fractured quartz infilled with clay? Kind of hard to tell from your shots and they look small. Bigger is better. Have you identified the country rock, the matrix? About the only thing you can do, short of developing your X-ray vision, is uncover the quartz vein and follow it. One thing field collectors have a problem with is when to stop. Only you know when that time has arrived. I think you have the fever, you'll have to feed it.

[Justin297206913]

I found a couple of smaller rocks with facets around the big one but none I saw were crystals. Most of this area was old farm land that my great grandparents owned with gardens and livestock covering most of it. Been MD around the old home place too. With doing lots of research, there's lots to find in the area but little time to dig and look :(

[Mike Wood]

Hi Justin,
the big rock you pictured from last weekends' digging (with the black stain) looks to me like granite - which is good - that is the kind of rock which hosts pegmatite veins. The smoky quartz crystal you found could only have originated from a pegmatite vein (or more strictly, a pocket in a pegmatite vein).
Now the second rock pictured that you dug up last weekend (IMG_1079.jpg) looks to me like a big chunk of feldspar with some quartz. If it is, this too can only have originated from a pegmatite vein. Could you clean that rock and post a photo of it? Even better would be to break it half and photo the broken side and the (cleaned) unbroken side.
The photo's of the white quartz in the small pocket look to me like the sort of quartz you get in hydrothermal veins, which do also occur in granite, but it's not the same as pegmatite veins - however the two vein types can occur in proximity to each other. The hydrothemal quartz veins are just a later stage of mineralisation.

So you have a smoky quartz crystal, and maybe a big chunk of white feldspar (please send another photo of that!) both of which would indicate the prescence of a pegmatite vein!
You also say there are tons of pieces of quartz all over the place. Are you sure it's all quartz; some of it may be feldspar. The other thing is that smoky quartz will go white with exposure to the sun, eventually; probably over many years. I suggest you look over all the lumps of quartz lying about - with practice you should be able to tell pegmatitic quartz from hydrothermal quartz. Wouldn't mind seeing a photo or two of these car sized blocks of quartz...

What I'm driving at is the possibility you could have both pegmatite veins and hydrothermal veins on your property. The former could contain pockets of smoky quartz crystals, the latter is the most likely potential gold source...

Good luck!

Mike

[Justin297206913]

How would I go about breaking it open? I would love to see what's inside of it

[Justin297206913]

I was down in the nearby creek panning and found this today

[Justin297206913]

Since this is the second piece of a quartz crystal I've found does that reassure that there is in fact a quartz pocket on the property and close to the surface? Neither piece looks like it has been washed any distance(not rounded)

[Pierre Joubert]