Otto's Pocket revisited

Summer 2011 Jim Nizamoff was suppose to come up for a day of mining. Where he doesn't come often I like to have something special for him to look at. He has the ability to get some identification done on difficult to identify specimens, it is worth giving him something special to see. Ray and I had been working a pocket in preparation of Jim coming, that was primarily quartz crystals but was showing some tourmaline cast and some other interesting mineralization but this quickly ran out. Knowing there was still some of Otto's pocket left to work on, we shifted gears and uncovered this pocket for Jim to be able to work in. We started working what was thought to be the bottom of the pocket with not much interesting showing, mostly some poor quality quartz crystals but with mining pegmatites you never know what will suddenly show up. I needed to leave early for a birthday party. All birthdays should should fall anytime of the year except mining season. Jim wanted to stay a while longer and see if anything showed up. Many hours later I get a call to find out that they started to find pocket beryl in the pocket. It was too late in the day for me to go up and Ray was taken the material home with him so I wouldn't get to see it for another week. This was exciting and frustrating at the same time. This would be the first pocket beryl that I had seen from the Havey and there wasn't much written historically on pocket beryl being found here.

photo by Ray Sprague Jim Nizamoff  with etched beryl he had just pulled out of the pocket with a cluster of lepidolite pillars.

photo by Ray Sprague Etched beryl from above, opposite side plus some other pieces that came out in the same area. One side has an orange tinge being morganite and the other side has a slight blue tinge which doesn't show clearly in the picture.

photo by Ray Sprague Lepidolite pillars-These show up periodically in the bottom of the pocket.

Etched beryl in the current bottom of Otto's pocket. Approximately 16cm across

These were not associated with the pocket but where in the same area and were 3 to 6cm across

Associated with the pocket beryl were some large quartz crystals although most like the one pictured above were not very pretty

I was chomping at the bit to get back up to the mine and check out the pocket beryl area. It can be frustrating to have to go to your day job instead of being able to go up to the mine. I did sneak up late one afternoon after work and did some digging in the pocket without much result. I needed to wait a couple of more days before I could go up and work it for an extended period of time. Finally the day came and I was able to go up and work the pocket in search of some additional pocket beryl. In the same area that Jim had found the initial pieces some other beryl started to show up. This was very exciting.  As we continued to work the pocket some pieces of tourmaline were showing up, they also were etched. The tourmaline was very sparse and the hope was that as we got deeper into the pocket tourmaline might show up or if there was a separate chamber that had a different growth habit that there might be a concentration of tourmaline.

Jim Nizamoff  working in Otto's pocket. The pocket had a substantial  side chamber but for its size it did not produce much. Some additional etched beryl came out along with quartz crystals some tourmaline, and a small amount of columbite. 

Photo by Jim Nizamoff Ray Sprague entering the Havey

This past winter miner Ray Sprague had seen the previous error of his ways and made the move to Maine. Rumor had it, this was so he could be closer to Roy's hamburgers in Auburn where he can often be found on mining days. With him moving to Maine and some changes at the Emmons, Ray moved his coffee pot temporarily to the Havey  It would be good to have some additional help. Ray has been mining long enough that he knew that it would not be all glamorous work. Everyone wants to help when there is a pocket to be dug but in reality that is a small percentage of mining. He is also very good at mineral identification and is good at cleaning specimens. I like to find specimens and Ray doesn't mind cleaning them, this was sounding good to me as I was getting quite a few pails stockpiled. Although I enjoy mining alone there is so much to do that having another set of hands and eyes would allow more mining to get done. In mining these pegmatites we really do not move very far in the course of a year and realizing there is more mining here than I can do in my lifetime it is good to speed up production. Move more rock, find more specimens. It is also great having someone who can identify the rarer minerals. I have to make sure I bring up Toot and Razz to keep Ray occupied in the slow times..