First Quartz Pocket

Late summer 2008. After finding the lepidolite area I would have liked to continue to clean the ledge off but this was my only access in to the mine. As mentioned previously the old access through the Berry mine was no longer an option. Getting into the mine a different way from the access I was using would be very difficult. Since I had exhausted the possibility of finding a pocket in the lepidolite area without blasting and since some of the participants from The Pegmatite Workshop mentioned the prospects on the further side of the mine I decided to do some work on cleaning the ledge off on the nw side. Since most of the trees had been cut earlier this year much of the work involved removing the material that had been dumped there decades before. The material was hauled out of the mine and this area was washed down. It showed some promise with several areas of quartz. When things were wet in this area you could see a glazing of lepidolite on the feldspar. There were several small areas of lepidolite and another are that looked like the bottom of a pocket. I decided after seeing what the prospects were on this side of the mine and the difficulty in working this side that I would abandon it for now and go back and work where I had been originally.

quartz area from the northwest side of the quarry

Back to narrowing up my access road. This time I chose the opposite side and after moving some material a large area of quartz started to show up. This was encouraging at least to me as it was the largest mass of quartz I had seen in the Havey since I had started. It had been mentioned that quartz was an good sign so I took some time and did a closer look. I could see some cookeite and it was time to bring out the hammer drill and start breaking apart the quartz to see if there was any hidden treasures inside. It was breaking apart pretty good and then the hammer broke through into a pocket and things slowed down. I put the big hammer away and then started to approach the area with a little more tenderness. As I slowly enlarged the opening and reached my hand in I could feel the smooth crystal face of the crystal. Pulling out the lose quartz and feldspar that was around it I finally pulled out my first smoky quartz crystal from a pocket. It was very exciting. The remainder of the pocket contained a mixture of quartz shards, feldspar, cookeite, and muscovite pieces. There was also some milky quartz and several more poorly formed smokies. This pocket turned out to be about the size of a volley ball.

Quartz area with cookeite. Surrounded by feldspar and schorl

When working in these pockets they have a tendency to be packed with different materials. These quartz pockets all had about the same make up as listed above. When working in the pocket it is nice to do it without gloves so that you can feel the crystals although this leads to some pretty nasty cuts. The quartz can have razor sharp edges. Sometimes you won't know you have been cut until you look down and wonder what all the pretty red rock is. In the pockets much of the material is packed in very solidly so it can be quite a bit of work to get out some of it especially in one piece. Many of the pieces in the pockets have fractures or are broken. Sometimes you are able to match up the broken pieces and put them back together. The best a crystal looks is when it is fresh from the pocket. Most of the pocket material that comes out of the Havey is very clean meaning a rinse in the water and you get a good view of what it will look like. Some mines leave a heavy coating of iron or other material on the  crystals.

One of the first quartz pockets. You can see the beginning of a smoky quartz crystal in the hole on the left. Notice the contact with the feldspar and quartz. 

This particular area of quartz I worked off and on over a couple of months. There were several more pockets that had some nice smokies.Almost all of these pockets had one nice smoky at the top(although sometimes it would be heavily damaged and then would have a mixture as listed above. Along with the pockets there were many small vugs that would hold a crystal or two although these were usually smaller crystals. There were many crystal faces along the seems that were discarded because of the poor quality. Some of the smokies had a clear apatite druse covering parts of the crystal faces. Below are a couple of smoky quartz that came out of the first quartz pod.

two views of the same smoky quartz crystal
overall dimensions are 16cm x 12cm

two views of the same same smoky quartz crystal
overall dimensions are 9cm x 10cm
note: clear apatite druse on bottom crystal