Saturday, April 23rd, 2011 A field trip put on by the The Southeast Federation of Mineralogical Societies, Inc. put us at the Glendon Pyrophyllite mine.  Most of the people here go for the pyrite.  Geometrically perfect, golden cubes, are the lure for the hundreds that know of this place.  Fluorite, another mineral that take on a cube shaped habit is what I was going for this time.  There is a small area where quartz veins are exposed at this mine.  Fluorite can be found within crystallized pockets inside the quartz veins.  This means a sledge hammer and pry bar are necessary for proper extraction. 

Sometimes there are floaters of quartz in the pockets.  This picture is an example of a floater I found on this trip with chlorite inclusions.  

This was one of my favorite finds, having an example of undamaged quartz and fluorite crystals together.

This was one of my best specimens.  It came from the center of a relatively large vug I found that day.  I managed to remove a section of the vug containing this delicate grouping of fluorite without damaged.

Great pics, Scott. I love the phantoms!

Here's the Fluorite Hunters at work.



Opposite wall of the quarry.



Six months ago when we were here they had just blasted
the ridge with all the pyrite cubes at the bottom of the
quarry, so the pyrite pickins' were about as easy as it can
get. Accept this time they made it even easier by hauling
all that rock with pyrite to the top of the road by the
entrance. Just back your truck up and load up!
Maybe you can see all the people on the pile
by the entrance in the top of this pic.



One more shot of the workers.



Now the best specimen I found all weekend was the one
I found today when I went over to Scotts to see his finds
cleaned up, and go thru his discard pile.

But here's a pic of some purple fluorite in a small vug I was
working.


And I seemed to be in an area where there was a lot of the
yellow fluorite. This is the first time I have seen any of
this color, and there's no mistaken it.



Till next time,
Joe

Thanks Dave, it was a lot of work to get them out.  Exposing the quartz vein buried in the heavy water soaked pyrophyllite was a lot of work in itself.  Prying off sections of the vein and then busting the quartz with a 4 - 5 pound crack hammer was a lot more taxing than I imagined.  By the end of the day my wrist and fingers were extremely sore.  When I got home that evening I just crashed because I was so tired.  But, it was the first time I had gone to the mine with the sole objective of finding fluorite.  It was a fun time and I was happy to bring home some very nice specimens.

As you know, Dan, this fieldtrip fills up quick. You've got to
be looking for an announcement from the SFMS when they are
going to start registration. Usually they will announce the date
and then a week or two later start accepting applications.
I believe all 120 slots were filled in about 48 hours.
I will try and get the word out to everyone as soon as I hear
anything next year.

Joe

The average size was around 1/4 inch.  I did find a half inch cube but one of the corners was damaged upon extraction.

Yeah AG, I would say it is definitely worth the effort, too.
Of course the pyrite collecting has NEVER been easier than
it is right now. They have all the best pyrite bearing rock
in a huge pile right by the front gate right now, so what do we
do? We go dig for fluorite. Go figure.
Actually, after the digging and blasting they did in the pit
last summer, Glendon is better now than it has been in atleast
the last five years. The choice of what to collect is probably
the hardest part.

Wish we had taken more pics of digging the fluorite. It's
in vugs in veins of milky white quartz. It's pretty easy to
work into the quartz and find the fluorite, but it's very
fragile and really hard to get the fluorite out intact. The
cubes will pop off and fracture with the slightest touch.
Scott, the son-of-a-gun, is always finding the best vugs.