Mark,

I don't know myself if titanium can cause a smoky coloration or not but was told that by a couple of very knowledgable old-timers that in the case of Montgomery County quartz that it was trace amounts of titanium under just the right condition, maybe even just a minor bit of background radiation, heat, who knows caused the odd grey smoke in quartz from there? I know that many of the smokies from the Uwharries will look different in daylight than say just sitting in a room under a light. The one I found at the Tower Road site was more like wispy streaks of brown smoky tint mixed throughout the clear crystal but some others that I've seen throughout the county were of a pale brown slightly gray color through the whole body of the crystal. If you find any evidence to support the titanium color effect in quartz, let me know if there is any truth to it. You know, some of Archie's famed amethyst crystals had smoky tints and wisp of smoky not unlike other NC amethyst localities. I've always felt like the source of those crystals was from somewhere between Tower Road and Lovejoy Road centered around the Queen Road cut-over which runs about a mile between the two roads. It was on this road that I know decent smokies were found and less than a 1/2 mile away from the intersection of Queen and Lovejoy I found amethyst. I found smoky at the Tower Mine as well and saw both amethyst and smoky quartz from there in Cagles collection. So I feel that there is a belt of throught there were conditions are right to produce coloration in quartz as I have seen it east, west and off Queen Road. But let me tell you this, that whole area is heavily posted and the locals don't play around when it comes to their land. I had a gun pulled on me off Queen road some years ago and I had permission to be there! I happened to get lost and accidentally ended up on some adjacent land that was leased by a different club and some "Fudd" dressed in camo was up in a deer stand (it wasn't deer season) and as I came around the bend, heard the "click-click" looked up and he had the darn thing pointed at me. After telling him what had happened he pointed me in the right direction and on I went. I thought the fool was gonna shot me! Believe me, that crowd up there don't play. But.....there is allot of access from Tower that is public land but its intermixed with private so its real easy to end up on private and not even know it!