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[ONGOING] Photos from Afghanistan & Pakistan
2/1/18 More photos/stories from Pitwak mine. Reuploaded broken Vidme
11/16/17 Added video and photos from Skardu, Pakistan
11/14/17 Creation of article with photos of Pitwak Mine, Afghanistan
During my conversations with dealers and miners I usually stumble across videos, pictures, and other miscellaneous things pertaining to the geological, socioeconomical, political, and more. Rather than having them get forgotten about in a long lost chat log I've decided to host them here. All of this information is entirely based off of first hand experiences of the people I speak with.
$42,000 Aquamarine
Weighing 5 kg and standing 1 foot tall. Perfect terminations, shape, and color.
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Skardu, Pakistan
According to the person that sent me this video this shows the intersection of three mountain ranges: Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and the Himalayas. It is also en route to the mining that goes on in Skardu.
At about 3:00 into the previous video you can see a truck driver with very elaborate decorations. I almost didn't believe that this was real and sure enough he showed me a National Geographic segment showcasing Lawari Pass and other truck drivers with similar attire. What a cultural difference!
Some other miscellaneous videos showcasing the beauty of the area.
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Pitwak Mine
A quick overview of the many parts surrounding the Pitwak mine. The miner I've been in contact was kind enough to give me some insight into what is found where on the mountain. They are named in a combination of Urdu and Persian. From the top down in the first photo the spinel mine is called madan spinel, hauyne - madan sodalite, dravite - madan daane zard, hackmanite - madan pitwak. What wonderfully diverse geology in such a small area. This is only half the mountain as well!
Some photos from base camp. As you can see it's quite close to the mines. However, it's quite difficult to grasp the scale of how large this area is from the few photos I have. You can see a large cluster of the makeshift houses in the last shot. There are roughly 500 homes, 200 shops, and a total of 4000 people living here during mining season. Speaking of which now would be a great time to interject the life of a miner in Badakhshan. First of all every mine has its own boss. At the start of the season miners can choose which mine they work at. They then get permission from the clan of the area (note: his words exactly. Need more info on what part the clan plays). This part is important because miners are able to buy specimens they mine and get the first pick at nice pieces. For example, the tenebrescent scapolite I most recently posted (http://www.raymond-wu.com/all/2017/11/10/tenebrescent-scapolite) was bought by this miner for $200. 5% then goes to the clan (note: reason unknown) and he can then go on to sell it for whatever price he wishes. In this case he sold it for over double that and it eventually made its way into my hands. For this reason alone some businessmen set up camp here to be the first ones to get the newest material being mined! Of note is that no women are allowed here.
Photo set #1 of Pitwak. Specifically this is within the area where tenebrescent scapolite, hackmanite, winchite, etc. are found. This isn't the most productive mine in terms of money earned per hour, that goes to the lapis mines. That's primarily because good crystals are rare and the material isn't as coveted as the lapis. As a result this part of the mine is seldom worked with at most 6 people working on it at once.
Part of the sodalite var. hackmanite vein. You can see that some areas of the photo are slightly purple. I'm told that the sections of the mine are referred to by what's found there. So for instance in Persian this section would be called shab chragh شب چراغ (?) which means phosphorescent and what the locals refer to when they talk about hackmanite.
Photo set #2 of Pitwak mine. This is a slightly different entrance to the Pitwak. I'm told that the mine is named after the first person that worked on the mine: Pitwak Haji Baba. Supposedly this happens after in the 1990s (though I can't find any sources that confirm this). The name also comes from pitawo, which refers to the spot where the sun's rays fall (confirmed by 2 speakers). A spot where you sit in the winter morning to get some warmth.
This last photoset is of madan chaar, one of the many lapis mines on this mountain. The area has been mined for lapis for over 4000 years. There are tunnels ranging from the back of the mountain all the way to the front. There are many mines dedicated to solely lapis: madan chaar, madan panj, madan jarok, madan regi. The area is collectively known as madan ladjuar. This is by far the most worked area with mining going around 24/7 at peak.
A list of mines as well as what is found there.
Gem-O-Rama, Atolia, Grimes & Sexton Quarry October 2017
Update 11/13/2017: Fixed 360s not loading on mobile
Update 11/25/2017: Fixed videos not having audio + added missing blow hole video
Day 0
Searles Lake is something that I've been wanting to do for several years. However, the opportunity never quite lined up. Either I had previous commitments or something came up last minute. Luckily the stars aligned and I was able to get time to go to this year's Gem-O-Rama. We originally had 6 people saying they would go to this trip when I planned it out a month in advance. However, my "luck" seemed to have rubbed off on the other people that were coming as they all slowly but surely cancelled until it was just me and SoCal FMS President Dave Stuck left. It worked out for both of our schedules as we got there at roughly the same time - 6 pm. Perfect for fluorescent mineral collectors as there's still some sunlight left to see the road and trails but just before it gets dark. Let the adventures begin!
Here's the first site we went to on Friday, before the Gem-O-Rama began. Luckily I had a hotel in Ridgecrest so we were only 30 minutes away from the historic Atolia mining district where there was a massive amount of tungsten being mined. Just look at how wide these veins ran. Some 360s and photos will really put into perspective just how rich of a tungsten area this was.
First stop: Union Mine
And here's the group shot of our finds for the night. Some massive chunks of bright fluorescent blue scheelite. There's a nice fluorescent red calcite combination with blue scheelite as well as a nice fluorescent green. When I collected it I thought it might have been hyalite or chalcedony but after testing it it's able to be scratched with a 4. I'll leave it as an unknown for now.
My haul for the night
Dave's haul
Followed by some more formal photos I took after I got home.
Day 1
So while we were up late last night, coming home around midnight from Atolia, we weren't technically late. As an old friend would describe it, "You were late for being early!" We got there around 30 minutes before they were supposedly starting. However, look at this lineup of cars that got there way before us. Looks like most people got there at least an hour before us. Some possibly stayed overnight! That's quite a long time to wait just to have maybe a 10 or 20 minute head start!
While we were waiting we kept hearing a bird cannon. It made an incredibly loud noise to scare off any curious avian that might enter the brine pools for whatever reason. Someone's job is to look for birds and to make sure the cannons are armed. That's quite ecologically responsible!
Finally it was our turn to get to the piles and look forward to some beautiful crystals. Boy was it packed though! The only downfall of being "late".
Some ground photos before we get to the 360s. Note to aspiring rockhounds: Tools like the Dewalt rotary hammer I show are not allowed on public land. However, this collecting site is on private property and I checked their rules for anything barring power tools - which there weren't. In addition, there were several officials on the hills watching over everyone. None of them batted an eye with my usage. Be sure to check your local laws!
One of the more interesting characters I met here was the person in the orange jumpsuit posing with a beautiful hanksite he had found. He's a boyscout leader named Dave that was taking his troop to the Gem-O-Rama so they could experience something new. That's quite an amazing (and muddy!) experience to have at that age. Hope they had fun!
And here's my haul from the mud piles. The first specimen has a lot of lint on it. Because hanksite is an evaporite and will get damaged over time by humidity I covered it in acrylic. However, I left it inside so all the lint that was flowing around landed on the specimen and is now encased in that acrylic layer. The halite in the fourth photo originally had a pink fluorescence that I found interesting. I'm guessing this was originally the halobacterium because this has now faded likely due to some combination of shining UV wavelengths, some of which were designed to destroy bacteria at the cellular level and direct sunlight exposure while the acrylic I covered it with was drying.
After this there was a bit of a gap before the next event so that people could get lunch and whatever else they needed. While some people took this opportunity to clean the specimens they just found I took the opportunity to explore. They had a miniature museum set up as well as a miniature show with maybe 15 or so dealers. There were wonderful minerals on display with this halite being one of my favorites on display. It had an interesting reddish pink fluorescence akin to Salton Sea or Amboy halite. However, this was mined from a different level to the mud pile minerals so I have no idea if this proves or disproves my guess that it was caused by the halobacterium. Note that this specimen is actually white. Any pink to red spots were from my LW UV source.
Once we had our bellies full (just a quick sandwich from their general store. Those delicious looking breakfast burritos sold out fast!) it was time to go to the blow hole. What a wonderful change of pace. After being incredibly muddy this was a place where you simply picked the minerals up off the floor. My tip is to bring plastic tools to this event. The crystals would get dinged otherwise.
The first 360 is me sitting on the bed of salt that became our collecting area. The scale of the Searles Valley Mineral company is just mindblowing and even my 360s don't do it justice! Add a drone to the list of things I want. The next is me showing off a doubly terminated hanksite crystal while being stared at by the person next to me. Trust me when I say this happened a LOT! Everyone wanted to know what my 360 camera was.
And here are my finds from the blow hole section. My favorite piece is by far the twinned sulfohalite though. The perfect terminations as well as the twinning make it quite aesthetic to me. Plus, it's noticeably the brightest fluorescent mineral out of everything I collected.
Oops! I took vertical video with my camera. It shows the phosphorescence nicely though.
While that was it for the Searles Lake events of the day it certainly wasn't the end of the day for us. After all, we're fluorescent mineral collectors and we thrive at night! The adventure would just be beginning for us. The first stop was the Grimes & Sexton Quarry. https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/show.php?labno=10236095. According to the MRDS it was primarily a lead quarry with some other metals (copper, gold, silver). However, just look at the sheer scale of it! This was the one time I forgot to take a 360. Oops! This picture only depicts about 1/3 of the quarry too! What a lead deposit this must have been.
Not that we cared for the lead minerals. We were there solely for fluorescents! There was plenty to choose from but this was the piece that I took home.
http://www.raymond-wu.com/all/2017/11/4/calcite-chert-travertine
After this is where the night came short though. Dave's other place that he wanted to explore ended up being a bust. It doesn't seem to have been registered with the USGS so I don't know what the name of the mine is. It was just a small tungsten occurrence and I had already been spoiled by Atolia! Of note is that there were still huge piles of tungsten ore that should have been crushed. Nothing spectacular like the solid scheelite chunks of Atolia but large 100+ lb boulders with significant scheelite specks. The crusher stockpile that was left there still had a large amount of scheelite in it as well. It was almost as if the place was abandoned for whatever reason.
The next day is where Dave and I parted ways. He had to prepare for some job responsiblities on Monday. My thinking was "I'm already here. Might as well go through with the full experience. I knew full well that the pink halite was not a good fluorescent specimen as I had seen plenty at shows and even purchased a piece when I was first starting out. Needless to say I didn't intend on bringing any home. I said to myself that I'd only bring home a piece if I found a small plate with exceptionally large crystals. Another tip is to not use the pry bars that they supply. I tried it out for about 20 minutes before I just moved straight to the rotary hammer I had brought. Much quicker and I could flip over larger amounts of pressure ridges (bumps on the surface of the salt bed where crystals form) in record time.
So what did I end up with? Not quite the large 3-4"+ crystals I had hoped for but a halite that was twinned side by side totaling about 2.5". It wasn't even worth my time to set up a proper photoshoot but I wanted to highlight the difference between the two pieces in the photo. The one on the top is a piece that I had bought when I first started out 3 years ago. It has long dried out and is closer to an orange color than the original pink. However, it fluoresces brighter than the fresh piece I had gotten. Quite interesting!
While the events of that year's Gem-O-Rama had concluded I still hadn't had enough. I wanted to explore more since it was still so early in the day. I decided to visit some spots in Randsburg, the first of which was the Historic Owl Cafe. I have to say that places like this are where 360 cameras really shine. There's so much effort and interesting history covering such a small area I don't think anything other than a 360 could do it justice. The owners, a husband and wife duo, had quite an interesting story. Originally their store was situated in Los Angeles as a security store - the remnants of which can be seen in the 3rd 360. However, they wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded city and so they moved to Randsburg. The husband already did occasional gold panning so why not settle on a place with so many fee digs and weekend gold mining areas. The amount of artifacts and curiosities they've accumulated is no short of amazing for the size of the place!
One of the other things that I enjoy doing when I go to remote places like this is look for antique shops. There are always interesting items that had been passed down through the generations. The place I found (and I don't remember the name unfortunately) had a wonderful trough of antiques. However, I decided that since I had found some uranium and depression glass in the remnants of a bonfire I impulse purchased some that was for sale at this antique shop. Unfortunately, while the shop owner didn't know that they had any uranium glass, I didn't get the killer deal I was expecting. Still, it beats having to risk purchases from eBay and the postal service damaging the fragile glass! Interestingly the candelabra is made by Fenton and has the patent no 3547569. Without looking it up I'm going to guess that it's a design patent!
Helvetia & Tucson Gem & Mineral Show January 2017
What an exciting time this was. It was my first Tucson experience and I was pumped! I knew that it was one of the biggest gem and mineral shows in the world but I wasn't prepared for the sheer scale of it. The whole town is encompassed and becomes one big show! Dealers from all around the world come over and show their wares. This was also the first time I had done any purchasing with other fluorescent mineral collectors. Boy did we stand out as a group lamping dealer's rocks and covering them with a towel, bbq cover, or otherwise.
The first night's dinner. Here I got to meet Glenn and Linda Waychunas. Wonderful company and wonderful talks about various fluorescent minerals - some on the cusp on science, others we had found recently or purchased that day, and more. This is where Mark and I first learned of that Convoy S2+, the light that Mark claims brought a new revolution to this hobby. I'll admit I can't come close to the price they're offering for that light. That's Chinese labor for you!
The next day we started at Electric Park (aka Kino Sports Complex). Mark & Co were running late so Steve and I got to look through a couple stalls first. That's where I purchased this beautiful lapis - handpicked from a huge container of lapidary rough for its fluorescence.
When they finally arrived we started exploring. On display were some wonderful works of art made with actual minerals! For example, the purple on the right photo contains actual tourmaline. The artist is a Tucson local named Zee's (https://www.zeesminerals.org/)
This was my discovery that sparked a lot of sales (I imagine) for this seller specifically. Not having any expectations I tested random minerals for fluorescence, even if I knew they wouldn't be fluorescent or knew their reactions. That's when I stumbled upon this gem. I was with Howie at the moment and had told him "Hey, this fluorite is fluorescing red. Is that rare?" He deadstops and immediately demands that I show him where. That's when I knew I found something good. For the next 30-45 minutes we look through every single box the dealer has of this material picking out the best of the best. Of course, after we pick the ones we want we call Mark & co so that they can pick the rest of the spoils. Because we go to Tucson as soon as it opens (end of January) and most fluorescent collectors go for the Fluorescent Mineral Society meeting or Mindat.org meeting (first week of February) we have a head start. Mark had posted about this and multiple others reported on buying a fluorescent red fluorite from him as well. Hope they put in a good word for us! Maybe we'll get a bigger discount next time!
After we had finished shopping for the morning it was time to go collecting! Dan Moore of mineralarts (http://www.mineralarts.com/) took us on a tour to Helvetia. It was a beautiful hike and the weather was great. We did quite a fair bit of bushwhacking though as this trail clearly wasn't used very often. Good! Because that meant not many collectors go there!
We were now at the spot where Dan had collected his wonderful Helvetia fluorescents. The amazing thing was that we were the first group of fluorescent collectors he had taken up there. Good to know that Dan didn't completely pick over the site! There were wonderful fluorescents to be had there with everyone getting some wonderful specimens to take home.
After every night the group would get together and show off their purchases for the day. In this case it was after the Helvetia trip so we got to show off what we found as well. It made for a wonderful group shot with a wide mix of materials.
Here are my finds. Wonderful generations of calcite and some nice brief intense phosphorescence in the videos next to them. Pictures in NL, LW, SW
Specimen 1: Caliche (fl orange) coating aragonite with spots of hyalite (fl green). Also has multiple generations of calcite (fl white & red)
Specimen 2: Multiple generations of fluorescent calcite banding (fl orange, red, yellow-orange)
Specimen 3: Caliche (fl orange) coating aragonite with spots of hyalite (fl green). Also has multiple generations of calcite (fl white & red)
Interestingly the oldest generation of calcite has the strongest phosphorescence under longwave. LW on the left, SW on the right.
The last day! The highlight for me was definitely that Daspletosaurus in the middle of one of the show tents. What a fantastic sight and well put together. Having volunteered at the Natural History Museum I have a huge appreciation of the logistics it takes to even get specimens in that position. I can only imagine the amount of wiring and balancing that must have been done to set up a display like that!
California State Gem Mine Trip May 2016
What an experience this trip was. I left straight after work with all the gear I'd need packed into the car. Driving up to this mine in itself was 287 miles taking 5 hours 42 minutes to get there. While it was a long drive, it was beautiful. I still enjoy looking at the landscapes on long drives, tasting the local flavor, and meeting new people. Unfortunately this only lasted a couple hours. About midway through the weather turned for the worse. There was heavy rain blocking visibility and a landslide had collapsed one of the paths on the way up. Thankfully modern GPS got me around that before I even knew it was a thing! I only found out about the landslide the next day when talking with some of the other hotel guests.
The next morning is when Dave Stuck, Marc Brown, and I met up at the California State Gem Mine. We were first taken to the shop where there were plenty of wonderful benitoites on display and for sale. They were WAY too pricy in my opinion and were well out of my price range. Compound this with the fact that I've seen better specimens sell for less on eBay and I left with nothing but pictures. I think Rick Kennedy still has some of the best benitoites I've seen ever. One picture that I forgot to take was of me fluorescing a large benitoite they had on display. It was beautifully red under my LW light.
Afterwards we were shown how to collect the benitoites. It consisted of us scooping a pile of dirt from a large pile, sifting through it in troughs, and looking for reflections or checking for fluorescence in the dark room. We were shown how to find them in the daylight but by the end we were all just checking them under UV. Much quicker and didn't require a trained eye. Luckily there was only one other couple there so we got plenty of hands on time and plenty of material to ourselves. If I remember correctly their names were Yvonne and Raymond. They had a cute story as Yvonne wanted a benitoite ring but had a huge sticker shock when she priced out a single carat. Therefore she and Raymond decided to mine their own!
UV room shown in the back. White building
The benefit of being a fluorescent collector in this trip? We all had our own UV lights. It was much easier and quicker to use my own light to check for fluorescence underneath the tarp I brought than to walk all the way back to the room and use their dim lights. Side note: the owner's dogs had a ball sniffing and touching all the supplies I brought. For the first couple 30 minutes or so they were either looking at me, sniffing my things, or doing some combination of those when I wasn't looking.
About an hour before our time was up I had the idea of just lamping the piles rather than sifting through everything. I found some of my best benitoites this way. It was much more efficient presumably because it had just rained revealing fresh material. Also I didn't have to waste time sifting.
After all of this the mine owners came by and checked out what we had found for the day. Unfortunately the only other couple that showed up beat seasoned collectors like us! Oh well. It went to a great cause because last I checked they were engaged with a benitoite ring.
And here are the fruits of my labor. Not quite worth the cost of admission but I now have more respect for the specimens that are being sold. There doesn't seem to be much of the material left - at least not here!
Daylight
253.7nm SW
365nm LW
Goodsprings, NV Trip June 2015
This trip had been in the planning stages since February when Cliff and I saw each other last. He had been telling me about how we should go to Goodsprings together. He had some great spots as he had been throughout the area plenty of times. He's retired and has a database of abandoned mines with GPS in his car so I don't doubt him! Can't deny that great collecting opportunity!
When the time came around the first thing I noticed was the heat. It was, according to Cliff, "Not as bad as previous years! My car's thermostat maxes at 125ºF and it's hit that several times." This time around the peak was only 113ºF. Phew! Glad I made it on a cool Summer year! Needless to say that 2.5 gallon water jug I brought with me was empty by the end of the day. Throughout the day we visited many lead, zinc, and mercury mines, the first of which was the Pilgrim. Boy did that slightly spoil the trip. One of the things I find earlier on are the rare hydrozincite crystals! Cliff himself was surprised as I had found a specimen that was on par with some of his best despite having been around the area many times. Heh beginners always get the luck. I've seen it too many times on the trips that I host! However, because of this great find, I ended up being slightly infatuated. Every subsequent mine we visited had me asking how likely I was to find even better hydrozincite crystals.
All of that excitement subsided once night rolled around. That's when fluorescent collector me started to get serious. No more tarps to view small sections of the ground. Our night stop was the Addison mine. Cliff wanted to find some of the rare yellow fluorescing willemite that he had seen mentioned in a report. That's when I shifted my focus from finding crystals to a nice bright specimen. Needless to say I wasn't disappointed. The night became alive under shortwave UV (253.7nm) light. So much there was fluorescent. It could have easily been called a field of blue with how much massive hydrozincite was on the ground.
That wasn't quite the end. I had to make one last stop back to the Pilgrim Mine to try finding some more hydrozincite crystals. Probably wasn't going to be very likely as those are much easier to see in daylight but I did it anyways! Overall lots of interesting minerals found and great memories made.
Hope Mine & Amboy Salt Flats February 2015
Shortly after Cliff and I had met at the Princess Pat Mines trip I organized he organized one. He had seen some pieces of fluorescent halite from the Amboy salt flats on eBay that he wanted to collect. Quite crazy considering he lives in Nevada! That was about a 4 hour drive just to go prospecting for halite. I think that's what turned off all the people that I had emailed: the possibility that the trip would end with nothing being found. There were only two of us during this trip. The day started out with us going to Hope Mine, an abandoned uranium mine. Nothing too spectacular here so I focused a good amount on photographing.
After that we went to the Amboy salt flats along route 66. Talk about a different landscape. Talk about a desolate area. The area had way too much salinity for anything to be able to grow or thrive off the land. I took several shots of the brine fields that were being cultivated. We eventually we found a discard pile that looked very different. This salt (NaCl/sodium chloride/halite) was noticeably different. It was white so we immediately thought to lamp it. Boom. A bright red fluorescence with plenty to pick from. The trash (presumably the reason all this halite was in the discard pile) was also fluorescent but we didn't take those haha. Mission accomplished!
Princess Pat Mine Socal Fluorescent Mineral Society Trip December 2014
After that high of discovering the vein of the then-unknown green phosphorescing mineral (it was willemite. A new mineral for the location!) I decided to host another trip. Unfortunately Jan & Jeff wouldn't be able to come this time around. This automatically made it much more difficult. How confident was I in driving to a remote place I'd only been to once? I had only been there once but I had the GPS coordinates. I decided to continue with the trip anyways. It really came down to the wire this time around. Combine this with the fact that it was raining heavily (flash flood warnings) up until the days before we were going to go collecting. The crew was mostly different this time. Many fresh new faces. I had reached out to people on Facebook and friends of friends. That friend of a friend was Kevin Brady. I had seen him through one of his eBay auctions when I was curious and tried to find out how much the material I was collecting was worth (spoilers: not much!). I saw that the listing mentioned that he was an active FMS member and still takes part. That's when I decided to reach out to him and, to my surprise, he joined this excursion. He was the one that led us to the Princess Pat mine dumps when we all met up. He had been to the mine dozens of times and all of this was a cakewalk for him.
We arrived at around 3:30PM. I decided to organize the trip an hour before sunset because California was experiencing a record two weeks of rain (a drop of water compared to other places I'm sure) and I wanted to make sure everyone had plenty of daylight to see road conditions. We shared stories of past trips, finds, crazy deals we got, upcoming shows - just about every aspect of the hobby as we waited for it to become dark enough. Cliff Jackson even had a portable viewing cabinet with him so that we could easily see fluorescence in the daylight with his Way Too Cool lamp! I definitely need one of those for when I do smaller presentations!
Energy was high once it became dark enough for us to go collecting. I even showed them some of the unknown phosphorescing mineral and everyone including Kevin was amazed. He had never seen anything like it before in his many trips to the Princess Pat Mine. He almost didn't believe me when we were looking at the specimens under Cliff's cabinet. Thought it was hyalite. That was my goal for the night: finding more of that unknown mineral! Possibly sharing some if I found enough to hand out like last time. Unfortunately this is where a comedy of errors begin. I learned one of the biggest lessons as the trip organizer. Don't plan your trip on a full moon! OOPS! Now the moonlight would be competing with our fluorescence. I would comfortably say it beat most of us. All of us were much closer to the ground than we probably should have been considering how we were in rattlesnake and scorpion territory. This coming from the person that brought a 26W homemade lamp. I wasn't quite on the ground but I was in backbreaking low territory. Tammie had a 36W UVTools lamp and even she was constantly on her knees. Kudos to Mr. Don Newsome of UVSystems though on such a focused reflector design. His Superbright II allowed Kevin to comfortably see the fluorescence at normal heights throughout the night. I secretly look forward to the day when shortwave UV LEDs are viable as I hate working with bulbs.
Next goof: my inverter failed. It got cold enough to the point where I wasn't supplying enough voltage to start both of my bulbs. Probably doesn't help that I got a cheap modified sine wave inverter as well. Combine these factors together and I was left empty handed. I left with none of that new phosphorescent material and nothing else interesting because I spent most of my time looking for it. The rest of the group had a great time and left with some very nice specimens so my goal as the organizer was complete. Just not the collector in me...
Cascade Canyon November 2014
One of the people I had met during my paleontology days was a geologist named Russell. He was an adamant field collector but also a dealer. While he had collected fossils in the past, there was no money to be made with our material. Years later I realized he was right! Haha. However, once I turned more towards the geology side he took me to some very cool places. One of them was Cascade Canyon near Mt. Baldy. It was a beautiful hike with some interesting scenery - one of which was the house pictured below. When I was talking to Russell about Cascade Canyon on the phone one of the things he told me about was a Hansel & Gretel house that was along the way. This certainly matches that description!
One of my best Cascade Canyon specimens. A very rich ruby-filled piece.
From a later trip in June 2015. I only took 1 picture that day so there was no better place to put it. Featuring Marc Brown (foreground & Todd Richmond (background)
Princess Pat SoCal Fluorescent Mineral Society Trip October 2014
Ah my first foray into the hobby. After about 20 emails and multiple attempts to get things going I finally managed to organize a trip for new members of the Fluorescent Mineral Society (myself included). It was quite an exciting time for all of us as hosts Jan Wittenberg and Jeff Wilmot showed us around the Princess Pat Mine. We started out collecting some nice small root beer colored garnets and poorly terminated quartz. Quite boring looking back on it haha.
However, as the sun set that's when our group's calling came into play. Fluorescent minerals. Everyone starts plugging their shortwave UV lights into their batteries, dawns appropriate clothing, and began the hunt. As someone who had never done this it was incredibly hard to contain my excitement. Never before had I seen a boring landscape of browns, whites, and grey become so alive. The UV lights absolutely transformed the area I was walking just minutes before into a garden of color. There were oranges (caliche), greens (hyalite), whites (aragonite), blues (scheelite), and reds (calcite). I still wish to the time of the writing of this article that I had an incredibly light sensitive camera such as Sony's a7s or Nikon's D4S to capture these moment. It was incredible for all the new members and I'm sure that Jan and Jeff got a kick out of our excitement as we traversed the landscapes in attempt to find the coveted 5 color specimen to bring home.
Several hours into my exciting adventure something catches my eye. Normally the minerals would stop fluorescing after you turned off the UV lights - a ground state if you will. The one instance we were shown was with the aragonite which fluoresced white and then retained that energy state for a short time afterwards. I was told it was called phosphorescence. Back to my story, I noticed that there was this green colored mineral that was phosphorescing very brightly and for long durations. In my excited state I immediately call over Jan to ask him what it is. Now, it was close to pitch black with the only thing that illuminating his face being faint moonlight and the fluorescence of the minerals when we had our UV lights turned on, but despite that I could almost sense that his mouth was agape with jaw dropped. He immediately asked where I had gotten it from and explained that I had found the largest instance of an unknown new mineral. Jeff had only found it 6 months prior and even that was literally a speck. This showed rich veins found in a small 2 or 3 inch specimen. Jan almost didn't give it back after I had asked him several times to see it again. The tension and excitement was palpable. The two of us were like sharks after we had smelled blood in the water. Our goal for the night was now to look for the rare new green phosphorescing mineral and collect as much of it as possible. Luckily that didn't take long. Several steps from where I had found the original piece I found another couple small pieces of it, then another, then another! I had to give Jan one of my bags so that he could carry all of this out as he had already filled up his pockets. It's worth mentioning that I had told him that I was going to let him keep most of it. I was taught this rule from my previous 5ish years experience fossil collecting. They'd have a much better chance than I did of getting it identified and making a contribution to this field of science. I was just surprised that they let me keep any of it at all. If it was me on one of my fossil collecting trips I wouldn't let the finders keep any of it in case a quantitative analysis needed to be done. This rule that I had arbitrarily forced myself to follow had me kicking myself soon afterwards. The motherload of all the pieces we had found that night appeared. I had found giant 20+ lb boulder of it while Jan was busy collecting every last scrap. Definitely a photographic moment (albeit very poorly looking back on it). True to my word and science, I called over Jan to come get the biggest and richest piece found. It was quite a way to end the night. He had so much of the unknown mineral that he couldn't carry all of it and the piece that I just found in one trip!
At the end of the night we all went back to our cars and talked about this new find. To have gone from a speck to buckets full was quite an improvement. They now had enough to get it identified through a (then-unknown to me) process called x-ray diffraction. We all stood around and watched the mineral phosphoresce for 5+ minutes since our eyes had long adjusted for the night. Throughout our conversations at least one of us would check up and say "Still going!" in reference to how long it phosphoresced. Jan stated that they needed to bring me to other trips by taping me to their truck as their good luck charm. It seemed that the beginners always had the best luck. Boy could I relate to that having taken others fossil collecting! Beginner's luck indeed. I'd like to think that my experience fossil collecting helped me find the area and pace myself to search an area in a limited time frame though. We even joked about what would happen if it was a mineral new to science. One of the members jokingly stated that it should be called "Raymondite" but I declined that thought without hesitation. I remembered how hard some areas of science were to learn considering some of the terms were in Latin. If I could name the mineral it would be something literal like greenphosphorite. Something that wouldn't have students hate me for having to memorize for generations to come haha.
We all left happy from the experience but I had a taste of a rare new mineral and absolutely had to come back and find more!
Paul Tauger, who also went on the trip, has his perspective here: