Tucson Bound

To anyone that is heading for Tucson to the greatest mineral show on earth there will be some Havey mineral specimens available to look at, if interested. John Whitney will have some material in room 163 at the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show at the Hotel Tucson City Center. Click on the purple link and it will take you to the website for the show.  John has other Maine minerals from many of the other Maine mines. Tucson in February is very nice. High temperatures around 70. If you are from a cold climate this is a nice break. Yes there is much to see out there and it will take you several trips to get the hang of the different venues. Although I am not a desert person it is beautiful in its own way and there are many other things to do in the Tucson area besides look at mineral specimens. That will be a later topic.

Field Trips

Spring 2011 I don't think any miner is big on having field trips come to their mine. I know I am not. It is a tremendous amount of work especially if they are going to be let inside the quarry. It usually takes a day or two to make the mine, people friendly and then I lose a day of mining while people are here. I didn't take up mining to become a tour guide. That being said it is great to see people learning new things especially the younger ones who have awe in their eyes. Some of the younger ones have a greater knowledge than many of the adults. There are some great field collectors, that come and it is a pleasure to meet them. As safe as we make it at the quarry there is always someone who thinks they need to try and access the most dangerous spot to see what is there and they become a danger to themselves and others around them. Rocks hurt when you fall on them or they fall on someone else and they are much heavier than they look. Groups would do themselves a favor if they policed their own a little better. As with most groups it is a very small percentage who ruins it for the rest. If you would like to visit the Havey I would recommend Poland Mining Camps as they are the only ones allowed in on a regular basis. I also let college geology classes in if it fits my schedule.

Yes the rumor is true the top of the tourmaline pocket was blasted off and ends up being spread around the mine.I had tried to keep it quiet about finding the tourmaline pocket, but it is amazing how quickly news travels in the mining world, much of it ends up being exaggerated. I believe this is caused some by us all dreaming of the perfect specimens. Mention of the word tourmaline brings visions of big gem crystals when many times it is opaque with no crystal structure at all. After working the tourmaline pocket and with a couple different groups coming in I had covered up the remnants of the pocket so that no one was going to get to it. Knowing that I had blasted off the top of the pocket I had looked around and washed off a fairly large area without finding much tourmaline, but when the Maine Mineral Symposium field trip shows up on a rainy day they have some pretty good success. Of course they have the advantage of many eyes and hands going through many different areas. Although rain can deter some it brings out the color in the rock that has a tendency to fade on a dry sunny day. There was plenty of fresh blasted rock and much of this rock had come from the mineralized zone so that it had many nice specimens although many didn't have much value, it is still great to find some color. It's also wonderful to see some of the youngsters out there looking and finding some nice specimens. They sometimes get some specimens that I have lying around that I don't really want to take home but are worth too much to throw away. I think it is great when the field trip participants find something nice. As a miner we don't spend much time going through the dumps unless it is right after a blast and we think something may have got blasted out. In this case I knew some material had been blasted from the pocket but the chances of me finding something was small although I am always on the look out.

A piece of gem tourmaline found by Barbara Liebman at the Maine Mineral Symposium field trip.  This was not the only piece of tourmaline found this summer. The best piece that someone found in the dumps was the best piece of  gem rough that came out of the whole pocket.  I am not asking for it back but would take it if you get tired of it. 

Another find from the Symposium trip was this nice smoky scepter. I was a little jealous on this one. It was a wet day but with finds like this no one was leaving

                                                                                                                                                   The Pegmatite Workshop was next to show up. This is a great group as there are many knowledgeable people. The workshop is a one week event where participants spend half a day in the classroom and half a day out in the field at a different mine everyday. I try to have the mine cleaned up for the workshop as there are many scientist in this group and they want to see what is actually going on in the pegmatite. Some of what they want to collect I wouldn't even give a second look at.  It is also a great time to get some people shots as there usually are some very colorful shirts worn by this group. I would highly recommend this event for anyone interested in pegmatites especially from Maine as it is truly a world class group. This event will not be held until 2014 as the Peg 2013 International Symposium will take place in New Hampshire and Maine during this period. Peg 2013 is geared a little more toward the pegmatite experts. I believe this is a first time that it has been held in the USA. There are both a lectures and field trips and this event will have participants from all over the world.

Photo by Raymond Sprague Anticipation builds as participants to the Pegmatite workshop near the entrance to the mine . For some it will be the first time that they have been here. Most that come have a wonderful time. 

photo by Al Falster Some of the Workshop participants eagerly waiting for the green light to go into the quarry.

Photo by Al Falster Yes that is Skip Simmons helping Jim Nizamoff remove a large specimen from the wall.

Photo by Raymond Sprague  Al Falster and one of the paricipants in front of one of the quartz pockets from last fall.

It's Tourmaline Time

Spring 2011 I had decided on changing the route for access to the bottom of the mine. This would involve removing a fair amount of ledge and this would enable me to lengthen out the road into the mine, therefore making for a shallower slope. I had a set date for this as a couple of different groups were scheduled to do field trips in the next month or so and I wanted the mine ready for them which would involve removing the rock that had been blasted through the winter and early spring.. Woody Thompson who was the man behind the Maine Mineral Symposium wanted a preview of the mine before the Symposium field trip to go over logistics. We set up a time to to get together and go over things. I was hoping to not take to long as I wanted to do a blast after he left. We got talking about different things one in particular was that they always seemed to find the good stuff at the mine he was visiting after he left.  By the time he left even though I had the holes drilled there was not enough time to do the blast. This was a little frustrating as this immediately put me behind schedule for getting in the new access. I headed up to the mine early the next day and did the blast and decided since I was behind I would double the size of the next blast to get back on schedule. In drilling for the next blast near the bottom of a couple of the drill holes I ran into some quartz and then some water. I thought this might be a quartz pocket  but didn't expect much as I thought that I was quite a bit above the mineralized zone. I put some stemming(this is small rock that we use to keep the blast confined) in the bottom of the hole, and in using this I was hoping to keep the blast from going in the bottom of the holes in case there was a pocket there. The blast went off fine and I did a quick look of the blast before packing up for the day. We had a Maine Mineralogical and Geological Society meeting and I needed to leave the mine early to get to the meeting on time.

The next morning I headed up to the mine to further investigate the blast. I got the pump out and started washing the blast pile down. After the blast everything is covered with rock dust so it can be very difficult to identify anything. Aside from cleaning the rock off, the water helps bring out any color that might be present. In one area I started to notice some gem tourmaline fragments. This was both a good and bad sign. Was this the remnants of the tourmaline pocket and did I blast it literally to pieces. The blast was fairly well contained which would mean that even though I had debris scattered for 30+ feet, if there was something blasted out it should be relatively easy to find. If the blast does not get sent to far you can typically follow where the material originated from. I concentrated on the area where the fragments were and washed away material for an hour or more just finding some additional small shards of tourmaline but it was leading me back to where the pocket was. After digging and removing loose rock for another hour I finally came to the remnants of the tourmaline pocket. There were a couple of large pieces of tourmaline laying in the kaolin on top of the pocket area. The Havey to date has not been know for it's extremely large crystals Getting some the size of your thumb is about as large as they get but this is nothing to scoff at. The larger crystals have a tendency to have more internal flaws, where the smaller material can be exceptional clean and make for some gorgeous gemstones.

An area of kaolin. Above this was some quartz crystals and below it would be the tourmaline.

Some of the first tourmaline to come out of the pocket.

It had been awhile coming but it was well worth the effort.

 Photo by Jan Morrison Me working the pocket.

As I continued to work the pocket it had two distinct areas, one side had absolutely no damage from the blast and this area had smoky quartz crystals still on the top. They were loosened from the blast so I was able to just pull them out. The quality of the smokies weren't that great but this was a tourmaline pocket and tourmaline was king in this pocket. Digging down there was a large mass of kaolin and you could stick your hand into the kaolin and pull out tourmaline. As I continued to work this section water kept seeping in and dissolving the kaolin, as this happened when you stuck your hand into the thin soup and felt around you could pull out a handful of almost solid tourmaline. Much of the tourmaline was broken into segments but there were a fair amount of crystals although most only had one end that was terminated. Some of the tourmaline was heavily included  and some was opaque but there where many pieces that where inclusion free. The other side of the pocket did not have nearly as much kaolin or as much tourmaline although there was a fair amount and some of this was attached to some of the quartz faces in the bottom of the pocket. This pocket was starting to turn into the real deal. It had been a long time coming and I was just soaking in the enormity of it all. I had spent countless hours drilling and blast, removing excess rock, hammering on promising looking rock and here was what I had been looking for. The Havey had been "the tourmaline mine" 100 years ago and had hardly produced anything since that era of mining ended.

There are stories of people calling all of their friends and mining acquaintances when they hit the big find, I didn't do that, I called my wife and just a couple of other people as I wanted to just enjoy the moment without a bunch of people running around. To date I had done 99% of the work myself and it was nice to be me, the mine and the tourmaline.

A tourmaline crystal in the matrix

A bountiful pocket. Photo taken late in the day so the color is not showing up real well.

photo by Raymond Sprague

photo by Raymond Sprague

photo by Raymond Sprague  

Needless to say my schedule to get the new access road into the mine would need to be put on hold. As I write this almost two years after the discovery off this pocket I am finally doing the blasting needed to  lengthen out the the way to the bottom of the quarry although with other work that has been done since them I am not sure if it will get used for this. The primary reason of removing the rock now is to get access to the mineralized area in hopes of additional pockets. To be continued....

Another quartz pocket

Early Spring 2011 Looking through the previous post, there is an abundance of quartz photos showing up and not much color. This post will be similar but have faith in the near future there will be some interesting colored minerals showing up. 

As the weather improved I was still working on trucking blasted material out of the mine. This time of year calls for some discipline when it warms up and you get a nice day there is the desire to switch direction and work where there is a chance of finding something. Most winters even the short ones are way to long, in the winter there is the need to stay away from the mineralized zone due to freezing temperatures and snow. It is very easy to lose things in the snow and if things freeze it is difficult to separate them. Since I get no sun in the winter even days when it is above freezing brings no relief. I always start doing some work in the mineralized zone before I am ready to work it full time, but I look at this as a reward and break from the tedious work and getting the mine ready for spring. Usually there isn't much to find but it is nice to see some color after looking at the drab colored rock for 3 months or more. The great thing about getting the mine empty is that then I have quite a bit of room for when I blast in the mineralized zone. Blasting in the mineralized zone typically is much smaller blast meaning it takes a while to fill the mine back up. Springtime can bring wet conditions and this year was no exception, we are actually getting more rain than usual. This makes it more difficult to work the lower areas until things dry out. 

Mining needs to be very fluid. Yes there is science and past experience that helps you determine where to go, but what you think will happen next, usually will change after some blasting occurs. This is what makes working a pegmatite both frustrating and exciting at the same time. The mineralized zone was changing, it had been very consistent for the last couple of years and all of a sudden there was a major change in the direction. I had been drilling and blasting in a straight line running parallel with the mineralized zone and now I chose to go perpendicular to the direction I had been heading and see if I could intercept where the mineralized zone was going. As I did a couple of blast it seemed that I was making contact with the new direction of the mineralized zone but it still was not doing what I thought it should. In trying to blast beside the mineralized zone the strength of the blast carried over into it loosening up some promising area.  After having a slow year last year except for the very end of the season it was nice to be able to get off to a good start with a lot of promising area to work.

Digging after the blast in a very promising area. As you can see even though the material from the blast is still in place, the material especially the quartz is very fractured. Seeing some staining on some of the quartz indicates that it had fractures previous to the blast and this could indicate a pocket is present.

Some very light smokies fresh from the pocket.

Some darker smokies out of the same pocket.

Barry Heath and Jim Nizamoff working in the quartz pocket.

Jim can feel the smoky but is having a tough time getting it out. Some of these can  be very difficult to remove.

An extraction. Not the best smokie but it is always great to get the first glimpse of something that was formed over 300 million years ago.

Mining must move foward

Winter 2010 So much for finding the big tourmaline pocket in the 100th anniversary year. A let down but the pegmatite looks very promising for next year. There is the possibility of Otto's pocket having tourmaline in the bottom. In the adjacent Berry quarry some of the tourmaline pockets had large quartz pockets above them.

 With the onset of winter and the colder temperatures it was time to start working on the overburden. Finding the smoky quartz pockets at the end of the season has got me excitied and I want to be ready for spring. I have been working in a trench and would need to widen this out if I was going to be able to work the mineralized zone. Right off the final drive broke on the excavator. This was not a good ending to the year. The final drive is was turns the track on the excavator and these are very expensive to replace. If you are careful you can hobble yourself around as long as you don't need to go to far. I was going to use this approach until it got closer to spring and it would be closer to going on a paying job. Some winters we can't mine much due to  the weather so I wasn't too worried about this.

No, this is not a piece of modern art, it is the track off of the excavator.

Started to work blasting the overburden at the end of December. At the beginning of January we had a spike int the temperature for a few days with some serious thawing going on. This was just what was needed as I was able to dig off some of the dirt overburden and expose the ledge that would need to be drilled and blasted. Loose dirt on top of the ledge does not go well with drilling holes for blasting. Sometimes it plugs up the drill if you aren't careful and then it has a tendency to fall into the new drill hole. Alas the snow moved in and I just came up for a weekly visits. The snow continued to pile up and decided I would need to wait for it to melt before I could do much work. The abutting property owner decided to cut much of the timber on his property which my access road goes across. He made a pretty good mess of things and did some damage to the road and drainage which would need to be dealt with in the spring. They said they would take care of it, needless to say they never came back. Although they didn't clear cut it, they did take out a tremendous amount of what was standing which took away much of the buffer between me and the neighbors. As with most places civilization is knocking on the door to the mine, creeping closer and closer as time moves forward. If you want to mine and be successful you are going to need to blast. The rock needs to be moved and blasting is a necessary evil, the closer the neighbors the more difficult this becomes.

Recently cut area, the mine is just behind the pines at the rear of the picture. The hill in the rear is adjacent to Mount Apatite, home of the world famous Pulsifer Quarry purple apatites. So much for the quiet meandering drive through the woods to get to the mine.

As it warmed up and the snow started to melt, blasting of the overburden resumed. As the pile got larger it starts to become demoralizing realizing that it all needs to come out. What I would give for a dump truck driver. Some of the material had some natural fractures causing it to come out in some very large pieces. There was one piece that probably weighed close to 20 ton and was much more than the excavator could lift. Much of the larger material usually comes from the outer zones of the pegmatite, is very hard and does not break easily. After dropping some fairly large rocks on it, the extremely large piece was broken into 1 ton pieces which were easily moved with the truck and excavator. Some people drill and blast these but it can be loud and  where I have close neighbors I take the quieter approach.

I get tired just looking at having to move it all.

Some of the last snow to leave as it is in a shaded area.  Spring is almost here.