Betafite at Silver Crater (basin property)

Hello all, this question would probably be answered by a collector who has been to Silver Crater?? I have been told that's it's near impossible to find Betafites here anymore? most if not all were collected during the initial mining operation many years ago. Is there any truth to this?? Where does one find them? Are they encased in Calcite or the Mica? I guess the only way to find out is to try, right? Just want to make sure I'm looking in the right places.. any info would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks!! Andrew..

Morning Andrew

Reiner and Tim are heading up this weekend... weather permitting... I'll let you know how they make out.

A few months ago I had correspondence with another chap who collected there earlier this year and he said that he found "betafite, but a large number of these had zircons on them" and he reported finding a 3cm zircon.

Look for the calcite.

Maggie

Hello Maggie!! Good to hear from you. Michal and I are heading up there this weekend as well. So far the weather looks promising. There is no shortage of Calcite at the Silver Crater that's for sure. I also read there may be a red halo in the Calcite if a Betafite is present. Any truth to this??

Another Mindat field trip! Gotta love it!

As for the halo... will let more experienced collectors respond to that...

Good luck!

Hi Andrew,

I found my betafites by searching for red halos within the calcite. The radioactivity (betafites are HOT!) alters the calcite around the betafite and leaves a distinctive reddish halo. I found my crystals in the calcite ledge just past the adit (if I remember correctly). Much of this calcite ledge has been blasted and taken away. Years ago people found them just by sifting through the soil. Some may use geiger counters. Check the area for other minerals as I found (but could not remove) apatite-(CaF) crystals that seemed as long as my forearm and huge mica crystals. Also, a few zircons and hornblendes. Just past the Silver Crater to the right there is a wall exposure where I found bright pinkish zircon crystals.
The real prize here are the betafite crystals with attached zircons---I never found one. It is a great collecting site though it has been hit HARD over the years and the betafites are far more elusive. I only found one on my last trip after finding several the first time. My crystals ranged up to nearly an inch in diameter. When Harry Ablett ran the Dwyer Mine Rock Shop in Wilberforce, he had a cluster of crystals with individuals nearly as big as golf balls...at least half-dollar size. He had it in a special display case and I really wanted the piece and was waiting for two collector/dealers from NY to finish their transaction with Harry so that I could snag it. They bought perhaps 30 flats of stuff and really monopolized Harry's time (he surely didn't mind due to the size of the sale!) that morning. At any rate, Harry and the guys agreed upon a price and the guy looked down and said, "Add that betafite to the total." AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHH! Harry had some very fine things and once showed me a large diopside crystal cluster (the biggest I've seen) that he had recently collected from new road construction. He had $250 on it but discounted deeply if paying in US dollars. It was the first day of our trip and I didn't want to plunk down so much money so early. He told me that it wouldn't last more than a couple days. We set up camp and collected for a couple days and I worried that the diopside would sell so I drove out to his shop to get the piece afterall. It was gone--sold to a MI collector the very next day! As you can tell, I have some great memories of the Bancroft area and would LOVE to get back there again someday. Have a great time up there and I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip.

Best of luck,
Dana



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2009 03:37PM by Dana Slaughter.

Thankyou for the tips Dana!! I just want one. That's all, just so I have one. I've seen pics of some beauties that have been collected there. I'll keep that rock exposure in mind as well if my collecting at Silver Crater does not pan out.
That must have been someDiopside crystal?? Sorry to hear you didn't get it. Obviously someone was willing to part with their money a bit earlier than you?? Either that or had more money than brains.. LOL.
Thanks for the great story Dana, maybe on day you can go back to Bancroft and make some more memories..

Andrew..

Dana's correct about where the calcite is, past the adit. However, also mentioned is that a lot of it is gone. The picture I found here on Mindat shows some of it still intact.

[www.mindat.org]

My best guess for success in finding the betafites, is to back up from the current face and use a screen/shovel to find older material. As long as you find calcite, you're in the right stuff and chances are there'll be some loose ones. I found several nice ones this way.

Hi Andrew,

Bancroft is a very special place to me. The collecting is fabulous....and so is the scenery. I spent a week collecting with a friend and then after I got married I took the family there to camp and collect. Yeah, missing out on the diopside was a major brain malfunction! I had the money but just blew it. Actually, I should have purchased MUCH more from Harry as he had great prices and a ton of local material.
The second time I visited the Silver Crater mine was a bit frustrating as there seemed to be a logging company in the area removing trees and making new roads. It took a while but we managed to find the mine through all the mud. I didn't have a vehicle that could make it back. The mosquitoes were ferocious and my youngest son and I collected with mosquito nets over our heads. My oldest son and wife didn't want to walk all that way in the mud, etc. and stayed back in camp.
If I could go back again I would concentrate my efforts at the Silver Crater mine, the Essonville roadcut for fluoro-richterite and phlogopite and, of course, the Bear Lake diggings. I would also go back during the Gemboree (which I hit the first time out) to scoop up some good finds made by others! The scenery and wildlife is fabulous as well. We saw many moose up by Algonquin PP, caught snakes, watched owls and hawks, crossed beaver dams, and caught (and released) some pretty impressive turtles, including one massive snapper. It is a fabulous area!
I wish that I was going!

Jealous in AZ,
Dana

That photo was from 1995.

Bancroft area is beautiful! There are also some beautiful speckled trout lakes and creeks still if you know where to go. Some of that lakes are being spoiled though. I know a very secluded lake that had been stocked with Splake (infertile speckle/lake trout hybrid). The 'roads' (trails) are literally almost always washed out or covered with beaver dams making waking to the lake almost necessary to reach the lake. Sometimes if you are lucky an ATV can be used to reach the lake. This is only in rare occassions when beaver let dams out or make them wide enough to drive across or below.

Some "smart" person dumped some largemouth bass in there and now for two years its all you catch now. I wish I knew for certain who did it because they would be "pinched" as locals say, heavily fined, have vehicles taken away, etc etc. however the lake will never be the same again...

Luckily like I said there are still a few good, secluded lakes, if you know which ones and can actually find them.

Also there are some overlooked deposits in the bancroft area. But I'd rather keep those semi-secretive

Peter Szarka Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dana's correct about where the calcite is, past
> the adit. However, also mentioned is that a lot of
> it is gone. The picture I found here on Mindat
> shows some of it still intact.
>
> [www.mindat.org]
>
> My best guess for success in finding the
> betafites, is to back up from the current face and
> use a screen/shovel to find older material. As
> long as you find calcite, you're in the right
> stuff and chances are there'll be some loose ones.
> I found several nice ones this way.

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A buena hambre no hay pan duro



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2009 05:25AM by Matt Neuzil.

Thanks Peter, I'll keep that method in mind. This area everyone is talking about? Is it just over the hill to the right of the Adit??
Hey Matt, how are you?? Don't we all have our secret places??



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2009 12:33PM by Andrew Johns.

hey andrew!! i'm fine. reserved to going to bancroft next year. hopefully by then i get crap straitened out!

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A buena hambre no hay pan duro

Hey Matt, like ya said there is always next year. It's a shame you couldn't come up this year. By the looks of the weather this may be the last weekend to collect. Man, it's going to be a long winter, AGAIN!! Guess I'll be doing alot of prepping to keep me occupied so I don't go insane..

Andrew

I collected finely formed betafite crystals between giant sheets of biotite, in those days called lepidomelane. This was in 1963! I always thought I could go back and collect just as productively because I didn't dig near where anyone else was digging. I could see the adit from the hill I was excavating. It was as though I was in right field and the adit was home plate. In my memory it was that same distance as on a baseball field, but I can not be sure. I only remember that I was above the adit and back quite a distance. This hillside prominance may very well have been mined down to sea level by now. Nevertheless it would be worth having a look at "right field" because I did not have to do any heavy mining. I only needed to pry the black mica out in sheets accompanied by a bit of easy digging with small hand tools, and then more prying. The crystal were exceptionally well formed. A good single of about and inch with attached apatite came out. Then a compact floater cluster about three inches with little damage as well as numerous smaller crystals.

Thought it was worth mentioning. I expect I will not get back there in this lifetime as I am devoted to my collected at WA Pass quite some distance away.

Enjoy the field trip!

Hello all,

For what it is worth, I was there in September 2000 on a New Paltz Geology field trip. I worked a crack in a ledge of salmon colored calcite. I was younger then and was not really sure what I was looking for mineralogically (I was looking for apatites) but I learned how to break rocks at Herkimer and learned that the best way to find nice crystals is to move rock. To everyones surprise I removed an ~ 6 cubic ft hunk of calcite, split it in half to expose an~ 3 inch betafite. Upon breaking the boulder down I collected a handful of other singles and clusters. All of these were embedded in the calcite with the burgundy haloes as described above. I had no idea what they were until my prof told me (he had not even told us to look for them because they are so hard to find perhaps??). They were ugly, but fully crystallized, and I honestly was not into the idea of keeping such hot rocks in my house but when I visited the museum in DC later that year and saw that my crystal compared well to theirs, I decided to hold on to it, at least for a bit.

Have fun!

Ian

Dana wrote

I found my betafites by searching for red halos within the calcite. The radioactivity (betafites are HOT!) alters the calcite around the betafite and leaves a distinctive reddish halo.

Hi,
Does anyone have a picture of those red halos in the calcite?
Please post pictures if you have.

I am in southern California and I know that I am never going to go that wonderful place,


Juan

Thanks Saul and Ian, great stories and some great info to boot. Saul I will look for that right field area.. Maybe I'll hit a Home Run and find one of those darn Betafites. And Juan, if I happen upon one of these halos in the Calcite I will definitely take a photo and post it for ya when I get back..or you can start hitchhiking and we'll see you in the Spring. LOL..
Thanks guys..

Andrew..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2009 07:10AM by Andrew Johns.

I'm amazed the Silver Crater Mine hasn't been turned into private property and closed to collecting. considering the significance of the betafites from there.

Rudy

I would be seriously interested in the property when the old man dies. I mean this in all respect as I do not know his name. There are a couple workings on the property as far as I know because one was explored for molybdenite and the other for betafite, mica and apatite.

Some nice apatite/betafite combos have been found in addition to the zircon/betafites as previously mentioned. It could be possible that decent molybdenite specimens be recovered it those workings are rediscovered.

I have to say that as much as i've collected bancroft I have never been to silver crated and would consider camping out for a night or two in a truck next summer to get in maximum collecting hours. I am thinking mid may before black flies completely swarm you. hopefully my license is reinstated then

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A buena hambre no hay pan duro

Hi Rudy, just for the record it is on Private Property. You have to pay the landowner a (Toonie) that's $2.00 and they will give you a map to get there. The trail leads of their land. The owner is Mr Kerr. David I think his first name is. I spoke with his wife when I was there in June..Not sure if you could get a truck out there? Almost like an ATV trail now.. and it's a 45 min walk.

I understand that, sadly, Mr. Kerr did pass away a year or two ago. That's why the road is in such bad shape these days. He used to regularly maintain it in his spare time. The $2 is a "trespass fee" for passage through the Kerr's property (an arcane liability work-around, I believe). The mine is actually on a neighboring lot behind - although still private, I am told. There are apparently several different interests in the area - mineral rights, surface ownership, usage lease, etc... It is somewhat of a complicated situation, but for the moment, everything seems to work fine for average collector access. Gotta love it!