1-13-08

So I decided that I should share with you guys my collecting adventures from time to time. I decided on Friday last week that I wanted to head out to the dumps at the Foote Mine. I used to spend at least one weekend day a month out there but after 8 years, the pickins is slim as they say and with well over 1000 specimens from here already, I dont go out as much. I got up this morning (kind of rugged, my wife threw a party last night) ate a little breakfast and headed out. It was cool today, about 44 for the high and cloudy. I was ready to pound!

When I go out now I really have to work the big boulders to find anything. The last time I was out in October I was working on a boulder that was showing some promise. Some crusty hureaulite, strunzite, nice mangangordonite and others were showing up. I decided to start back on it.

After a couple hours work I was able to clear out an old core hole that happened to be in the block and I used the head of my old broken sledge and two chisels to split the boulder.

The left-hand portion that was freed was full of some nice things and was worth the work. I found the best hureaulites I have ever seen from here. Spectacular day!












The mangangordonites were a plenty with xls to about 1.5mm. Many of them are a bit dried out and white but still nice nonetheless.







There were also some nice childrenite/eosphorites



and some very unusual cavities filled with very tiny but sharp metaswitzerite xls with tiny but gemmy vivianites, something I have only found one other time.



By far the finds of the day were several (at least 8) very good to exceptional hureaulite specimens. Hureaulite in nice xls excites me very much here because it is quite rare. Usually when found hureaulite here is almost massive due to the tight spaces it grows in. The vugs here are very small and very isolated. You never know when you will come across one when collecting. The hureaulite tends to be in zones and you are just lucky if you find a vug with any in it. The specimens I collected today made my heart jump. The best is a 2cm vug with clusters of xls to nearly 7mm.




Overall not a bad day. From just the one half of this boulder many species were found. In addition to the above were: strunzite, laueite, rockbridgeite, beraunite, stewartite, cacoxenite, rittmanite/whiteite, and one very strange specimen with a broken spray of kastningite xls with a small cluster of autunites growing on it. One for the paragenesis value alone. Well thanks for reading and happy collecting!

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