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Skinny Minnie Pocket

Where do I begin? The new eastern part of the crystal dome rock was supposed to be completely excavated in the 2015 digging season.  But a funny thing happened that slowed things down considerably.  I came across a pocket unlike any I have encountered up to that point.  It was long (approaching 20 feet) and narrow (2-3 feet) and ranged in depth of 6 to 18 inches.  At the bottom of pocket was a nice combination of smoky quartz and amazonite crystals.  Although somewhat better that the average pocket, it was not unusual.  What was different about this pocket was the getting to the bottom or base.

The depth of the pocket (granite and pegmatite on either side) was filled with a clay like substance. And embed in this clay were hundreds of good to perfectly formed crystals.  When I encountered this, I traded my shovel and pick for small bamboo skewers and brushes.  Moving cubic feet of dirt became painstaking picking and cleaning.

This was by far the most prolific find of quality free-floating crystals I have ever found.  As of the winter we are still cleaning and sorting the remarkable contents of the Skinny Minnie Pocket.  The spring of 2016 will continue with the down hill extension of this great pocket.

  Natural Setting:

  Sorting The Minerals:

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The pocket is outlined showing the approximate width & length to date. The bottom edge is where I stopped at the end of the 2015. The pocket will most likely extend further downhill in 2016.

See it now?

The pocket is difficult to pick out without being outlined.

Close.

Getting a closer look at one of the crystal clusters within the pocket:

Closer.

Closest.

The loose minerals were brought up from the mine in egg crates and washed outside where an initial selection of the better specimens took place.  Sheila then further cleaned and soaked the crystals in Iron Out and gave them back to me for sorting and  further processing.

We ended up with 12 padded makeshift crates from cut up wine cases.

We ended up with the following:

In Matrix (1 of 2).

In Matrix (2 of 2).

Amazonite single crystals.

Amazonite twin crystals.

Quartz single crystals - over 1.5 inches (1 of 3).

Quartz single crystals - over 1.5 inches (2 of 3).

Quartz single crystals - over 1.5 inches (3 of 3).

Quartz phantom crystals.

Quartz single crystals between 1 and 1.5 inches.

Quartz single crystals under 1 inch.

Quartz twins and multiple growths (1 of 2).

Quartz twins and multiple growths (2 of 2).

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