MINING BACKGROUND

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!

For city folks this expression means neighborhood.  For us it means view, setting and, for some, gem stones.  Obviously, we were tuned into the first two when we found and purchased our property.  What we did not know was that the property was in the middle of a band of rocks and minerals that had an abundance of semi-precious gem stones.  On one side of us is Crystal Peak, an area that has been mined for many years and has produced a number of spectacular rock formations some of which are in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Smithsonian.  On the other side of us is a topaz mine.  In between are many amateur and not so amateur mining claims and digs.

We knew something was up when we blasted and found pieces of smoky quartz crystal strew over the debris area.  The next hint was when we found a bunch of people crawling up our 20 foot blasted out rock wall.  Our final hint was when our friend, John (a geologist) toured our property and identified old and not so old surface digs.

Fortunately, and strictly by chance, we own the mineral rights to our property so we can and are now mining it.  In fact, John helped us identify logical places to dig and he and his friend, Bill, spent several days digging on our property.  They found small smoky quartz crystals and amazonite.

TYPE OF ROCKS

There are a number of minerals and stones on our property that only a geologist can explain and appreciate.  Keeping it simple, some of the rocks we have are:

· Smoky quartz crystals

Color is variable from clear to brown and black and sometimes smoky gray.

· Amazonite

Varies in color from yellow-green to blue-green and may also exhibit fine white streaks.

· Topaz (maybe)

Golden brown to yellow color.

· Various types of Feldspar

· Mica

The type we have here is black and often flakes off in layers.

Worthless varieties include iron pyrite (fools gold) and white crystal.

The property also has a good deal of Pikes Peak Granite.  Great for decorating lawns if you can move some of the huge rocks.