Connecticut, USA

Whoa.... that is the first ct phantom quartz i've seen!

-Rowan Lytle

son: -picks up huge loose amethyst cluster- "Is this what we're looking for?"
father: "Holy #$@%!

Rowan,

I have posted some photos of amethyst from the Route 11 roadcut in Salem. None of those show phantoms, but there were loads of phantom quartz crystals from there. I'm going to search my collection to see if I kept any. If I did, I will post a picture.

Mickey

Rowan,

As promised, here are three pictures of phantom quartz from the Route 11 roadcut in Salem. I collected these in May 1976. The phantoms are pale amethyst in clear quartz. Some are multiple phantoms.

Mickey

gorgeous Mickey!

-Rowan Lytle

son: -picks up huge loose amethyst cluster- "Is this what we're looking for?"
father: "Holy #$@%!

Found my hardhat, camera and notebook and went for it. This location is just across from rt 8 south at the end of the first (northmost) Torrington exit ramp. The quarry belongs to digger Dan Stoughton of Mountaintop Trucking. If you would like a quick peek, its very easy to park beside the white van, at nearby Dunkin Donuts, and hike 40 yds up the hill to quarry's edge. this will bring you right along the purple/blue quartzite actinolite/ tremolite zone where there is Zoisite/thulite. Yes, I just said that,ZOISITE! many veins of quartz crisscross the area.although they dont seem to run to the depth of the quarry floor, they are very evident(exposed) on the south wall. Please dont try to climb up to them as this wall is very volitaile, and no quartz Ive seen yet, is worth dying for. Plus Im sure an injury or fatality would cast a grim shadow on future collecting efforts. In the pic, behind the chipper, on the first wall there are mud pockets that go about 30ft down that have beautiful sceptered quartz crystals up to 2 inches. almost all quartz frome area has green inclusions, dots of chlorite? some crystals,although not very clear are of decent size 3and 1/2x1and1/2x1.There is also a decent amount of Metallic minerals. Pyrite and galena I can say for sure but also others, I will wait for the pro opinions. I imagine this must be a peg zone because I have a beautiful little pink lepidiolite about a quarter inch wide that I can see right through. does this mean a high chromium content? Gems in Torrington?
Sorry I waited a few weeks on giving up this info, I had told associates of other haunts in the past, with only deep regrets,Beer bottles on site, unfilled holes,garbage ect. and it would break my heart to find a no trespassing sign here. however I have milled it over in my mind this last week, read alot of mindat posts, and have come to a conclusion that this place deserves far more than an amatuer such as myself mousing around the edges. It would be great if the Bristol club could get access. Either way, Im sure you freindly people of Mindat can do something to save some of these beautiful minerals from the chipper! JB

t I just worked on a house on the top of the west side, 97 deer hill/run? this is on the western side of huck hill, there are some dig signs in the adjacent lot, and quartz pockets in the boulders down the eastern side of the hill. perhaps enough woods here to ferret around.

Rowan: Your "Strickland Hill Prospect" is OBVIOUSLY the famous Strickland Quarry.....so many localities are mudded up by the naming of various types, like "quarry", "mine" or "prospect", but the literature never narrows this nomenclature down, so that if you were to look up the Tip Top Mine, for example, you wouldn't get a "hit" on mindat, since they list it as the "Tip Top Quarry"...no other description will get you to the proper page, as a matter of fact, it completely ignores this description and says basically there is no such locality....most other websites at least attempt to match or identify at least one key word so you have a chance at identifying it...

Harold, I'm surprised you missed this one (about "Strickland Hill Prospect")!!!

William C. (CHRIS) van Laer: "I'm using the chicken to measure it..."

Actually, this is apparenly located on a hill opposite from collins hill, and is different from the strickland quarry.

-Rowan Lytle

son: -picks up huge loose amethyst cluster- "Is this what we're looking for?"
father: "Holy #$@%!

There is a Strickland Hill just north of Collins Hill. It has some small pegs on it, too. So there could very well be some prospects up there, never been up there. But for whatever reason the Strickland pegmatite is on Collins Hill. There's no way the Strickland quarry could be called a prospect, though compared to today's giant open pit copper and iron mines and even the southeasternmost feldspar quarry at White Rock in Middletown, it's a puny hole in the ground...

Just visited Canton lead mine on 4/14/2012. Most of it is covered because when they put in the circle of new houses the road and shoulder covered most of the dumps that used to spread out below the mine. We had exactly 10 minutes on the site near the culvert before we were unceremoniously thrown out by the property owner who threatened to call the police if we didn't leave.

Your best bet is to key an eye out for construction sites where they are blasting in traprock. I got some mice prehnite a few years ago on the site next to the Wendys on the Berlin Turnpike.

I was at the Simpson quarry this week and the dumps seem to be picked over.

Update on Canton Lead Mine
this summer (2012) I took a couple of people there on a field trip and we were there no more than 5 minutes before the owner who lives in the house next to what's left of the locality told us in no uncertain terms that if we didn't leave immediately he would have us arrested for trespassing. There isn't much left of the mine except for a little material from the dumps right next to the culvert going under the road

Having checked the Assessor's Map a few years back, I am fairly certain the Canton Lead Mine is on town property. Doesn't mean its open for collecting, but it does not belong to the neighbor.

If its on Canton town property, the rules are that you need to stop at the police station the day of visit to get a dig permit, and must donate 10% of any proceeds (if specimens are sold) to the town of Canton. We need to get someone out the the town hall tax assessor's office to verify that this is town property, and determine an access route along town property, and put together a day-dig! We could all park along the culvert with permits proudly displayed in our windshields! Seriously, we should look into this.

Regarding Strickland Hill, this name may have been used by someone for an aplite prospect east of the Strickland quarry where the late and great Richard Schooner found beautiful almandine garnets which were on the same hill, Collins Hill, as the Strickland Quarry.