The information provided within this Forum about localities is only given to allow reference to them. Any visit to any of the localities requires you to obtain full permission and relevant information prior to your visit. FMF is strictly against any illicit activities related to collecting minerals.
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Jun 16, 2016 03:45 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Hi Mike, thank you. Yes they did. This area is mostly sand under the sandstone rocks. I will make an effort to photograph some of the specimens and show them. Best regards. _________________ Pierre Joubert
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Aug 14, 2016 11:25 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Mike Wood wrote:
Thanks for showing your pictures Pierre, and the video was good!
Did the quartz crystals clean up nicely?
Best regards, Mike
Hi Mike,it has been a while but finally I have a few pictures of cleaned specimens from the above pocket. We removed so much but the rest ended up somewhere with all the other boxes of uncleaned material.
P1180336.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Description:
This rock with crystals, weighs more than 40 kg. I carried it for about half a km to the car.
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P1180270.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
76 x 24 x 11 mm
Description:
It looks like an 'Australian' quartz; boomerang:-)
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23854 Time(s)
P1180272.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
59 x 39 x 25 mm
Description:
Viewed:
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P1180275.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
44 x 25 x 16 mm
Description:
A lovely 'healed' floater.
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P1180276.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
44 x 25 x 16 mm
Description:
Same as above.
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23843 Time(s)
P1180281.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
56 x 36 x 17 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23894 Time(s)
P1180299.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
22 x 20 x 12 mm
Description:
A stunning gem floater.
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23804 Time(s)
P1180303.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
22 x 20 x 12 mm
Description:
Same as above.
Viewed:
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P1180286.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
45 x 17 x 07 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23824 Time(s)
P1180283.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
34 x 19 x 16 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23788 Time(s)
P1180288.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
35 x 24 x 17 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23807 Time(s)
P1180316.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
48 x 19 x 17 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23780 Time(s)
P1180323.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Aug 15, 2016 10:18 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
This weekend, I drove out to a large quartz ridge that I have partly explored in the past. I visited a new area of this ridge that I have not explored yet. I was limited to about 4 hours of searching and found enough promise to return to this area. I spent about 2 hours digging at 2 places and found quartz with 'free form' shapes. These are in the acid and I hope to show some once they are clean. Here are a few photos from the trip. It was cloudy, cold and when I got back home, it rained for about 24 hours.
Panorama 1.JPG
Description:
A panorama shot from the top of the ridge.
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P1180268.JPG
Description:
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P1180266.JPG
Description:
The small dot on the open piece of ground, is my car.
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P1180265.JPG
Description:
Sunset through the clouds.
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P1180256.JPG
Description:
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P1180257.JPG
Description:
Lots of quartz, lots of promise.
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P1180258.JPG
Description:
One of the areas where I dug.
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P1180259.JPG
Description:
A piece of quartz with crystals; not worth keeping, but a good indicator.
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P1180260.JPG
Description:
Another piece of quartz showing a possibility of better material.
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P1180261.JPG
Description:
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P1180262.JPG
Description:
This is the place I spent most of my time. The crystals that I removed from the soil, appears to have fallen down a large gap behind a rock, from higher up. It is to dangerous to attempt to remove this rock
Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Posts: 456
Location: Northern England
Posted: Aug 15, 2016 14:23 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Thanks for showing us your nice quartz crystals Pierre, and thank you for showing your photo's of your 'outings'. The landscape looks big and empty and tranquil - my favourite kind! Is winter nearly over yet?
Best regards,
Mike
p.s. 40kg? That's some big chunk of rock Pierre! I hope you didn't have to carry it uphill back to the car! The quartz crystals on that piece do look really special though :-) _________________ Rock basher
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Aug 16, 2016 03:45 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Mike Wood wrote:
Thanks for showing us your nice quartz crystals Pierre, and thank you for showing your photo's of your 'outings'. The landscape looks big and empty and tranquil - my favourite kind! Is winter nearly over yet?
Best regards,
Mike
p.s. 40kg? That's some big chunk of rock Pierre! I hope you didn't have to carry it uphill back to the car! The quartz crystals on that piece do look really special though :-)
Hi Mike. Thank you. The crystals are not the best from the trip, with the exception of a few smaller pieces. The others will surface someday when we clean the 'backlog'. The terrain where I carried this big rock was not that bad; mostly quite level. This site is only about 6 km from our house on a farm.I am really hoping that I can take you to these places in the near future. When are we seeing your article? _________________ Pierre Joubert
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Sep 02, 2016 06:15 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Here are a few quartz specimens from the last 'recce' trip. The growth formation is very complex and 2 of the examples are floaters. We hope to visit this area a few times more as it holds a lot of promise.
P1190031.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
67 x 24 x 13 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23382 Time(s)
P1190030.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
67 x 24 x 13 mm
Description:
Same as above.
Viewed:
23409 Time(s)
P1190034.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
41 x 28 x 17 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23374 Time(s)
P1190036.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
41 x 28 x 17 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23377 Time(s)
P1190038.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz with Goethite
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Sep 02, 2016 06:41 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
antoniopedro wrote:
Hello,
Very nice quartz's... I love them. Best regards,
Antonio Pedro
Thank you Antonio! Here are a few more specimens that we found on a very recent trip. We found these specimens very close to where we parked. We also found numerous smaller ones, but they will be cleaned, some day, some year:-)
P1180968.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
110 x 55 x 43 mm
Description:
A bent quartz with very interesting growth form.
Viewed:
23326 Time(s)
P1180974.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
110 x 55 x 43 mm
Description:
Same as above.
Viewed:
23334 Time(s)
P1180985.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
110 x 55 x 43 mm
Description:
Same as above.
Viewed:
23350 Time(s)
P1180987.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
110 x 55 x 43 mm
Description:
Same as above.
Viewed:
23379 Time(s)
P1180988.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
70 x 17 x 16 mm
Description:
Viewed:
23423 Time(s)
P1180993.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Dimensions:
44 x 40 x 23 mm
Description:
A floater.
Viewed:
23351 Time(s)
P1190003.JPG
Mineral:
Quartz
Locality:
Ceres, Warmbokkeveld Valley, Ceres, Valle Warmbokkeveld, Witzenberg, Cape Winelands, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Posted: Sep 02, 2016 18:42 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Pierre, the different habits, different locations, most local to you and the persistence you show with your quartz collecting the Western cape is without match. I think you are the only guy reporting from that burg. Nicely done. Keep up the work. Thanks
Vic
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Sep 03, 2016 04:11 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
vic rzonca wrote:
Pierre, the different habits, different locations, most local to you and the persistence you show with your quartz collecting the Western cape is without match. I think you are the only guy reporting from that burg. Nicely done. Keep up the work. Thanks
Vic
Hi Vic, thank you. I am not metaphysically minded, but I will agree with them on one thing: 'quartz can seriously affect the mind'. I am a happy addict:-) In a way I am glad that I am one of the few that explores the Western Cape for quartz deposits. Most of the places where we dig, are maiden places. In just one such a remote area, I discovered quartz ridges and veins totalling more than 30 km! That will take a few lifetimes for me to explore.Best regards and please keep us up to date with your exciting digs. _________________ Pierre Joubert
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Sep 04, 2016 13:58 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
Yesterday afternoon (Saturday), I had a few hours spare so guess what I did. I have a habit of visiting old places where I once had some joy with nice quartz finds. This particular place had a few rocks too big to move to futher exploit a quartz vein, so I took a large 'wrecking bar' with me. I moved some big rocks and found pockets going in deeper under a quartz reef. I removed a few small clusters and next time I will take a hammer and chisel to open the pockets and remove the contents. Here are a few photos, taken just before I left; just before dark.
Panorama September.jpg
Description:
A Panoramic view from where I was digging.
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P1190056.jpg
Description:
A picture of the hole I dug after removing a big rock.
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P1190059.jpg
Description:
A close up of the hole. Note the quartz reef to the right of the picture.
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Clipboard01.jpg
Description:
The 2 yellow arrows indicate where the 2 pockets are. The openings are not large enough to explore with your hands.
Joined: 09 Mar 2012
Posts: 1605
Location: Western Cape
Posted: Sep 05, 2016 01:46 Post subject: Re: Quartz collecting outings in South Africa
vic rzonca wrote:
Pierre, let me see if I can lift that flake off your pocket zone.
Your skills will be very welcome here:-) I just do not see how you will get that jack under the ledge. I have 2 options; either I break the ledge with a big hammer, or I slowly break it up with a 4lb hammer and chisel. As you know, the quartz is not easy to chisel. When I do visit this hole again and make progress, I will keep you up to date. Any more suggestions as how to tackle this task, will be welcomed. Best regards. _________________ Pierre Joubert
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