Hey Robert,
  We have made some progress!
  Scaro came over today and picked up just a sliver of your
Only Wake County Emerald To Be Found In The Last 50 Years.
He had bodyguards with him so I'm sure it will be well protected.
Stephen, Scaro, will be running a XRD test on it for us and only needed a little sliver
so I still have most of the gemstone.
I smoothed down the cut surface and took some of the mica
off the bottom. Didn't hit any green from the bottom,
and I know you can't tell much from these pictures,
but it looks like a lot of solid green running thru the middle of it.
Very gemmy, very pretty.

Thank you very much, Scaro, and feel free to post your findings here.

XRD indicates that the sample is indeed beryl (with some of the black phlogopitic biotite that I couldn't remove from the sample).

After running some soil samples with a million different inseparable minerals it was nice to see a good clean spectrum with little to no ambiguity.
Having seen the sample cut into a bit in person I also had the feeling that it looked substantially different from crabtree material inside.  One crystal even had just a hint of trapiche look to it, which would be even more exciting.

Way cool!

You should be excited, Robert! I know I am!
Great job, Stephen! Thank you so much for offering to do the test
and the way you have shown us the results.
It is very nice to have confirmation!
Now that we have cut an end off the piece and gotten a glimpse inside
I am more confident than ever that this emeralds' place of origin is Wake County,
and not the Crabtree mine or Brazil.
The suspect "trapiche" looking inclusion mentioned by Stephen above,
and the possibility of trace metallic minerals, possibly graphite(?),
mixed in with the mica that Scott noticed recently
all say to me that there should be enough "tell-tale" signs evident
to set this emerald apart should anyone care to further the investigation.

Yes, I am excited to say the least. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life
to see someone find a wake County Emerald, and Robert,
I believe you have done it!
I could not find your phone number until late tonight,
so I will call tomorrow and get this treasure back  to you!
I believe there is a beautiful cabochon sitting inside this matrix
that you may just have to bring out one day.

oh yeah, one more thing...............
that creek behind your house may get a little busier than usual.
You might want to crank up that old firepit and start selling
burgers and dogs on the side.

Thanks again, Scaro!

Joe

Do you have the chemical analysis of the specimen available?

Very cool to now know there are Emeralds in Wake County!  Who found the one 50 years ago?

Hey, hey, hey

Maybe not all of them yet, Joe - I found a very interesting rock yesterday that I cleaned up today and I think I may have found another one!

Bring your eye piece and camera when you come over.

cheers,
r

Hi,

I found this rock a while back at PopPop Point and the more I looked at it, the more it looked like an arrow head. Joe and Scott agreed but said it may be a spear head - made of nicer banded quartz - probably a Savanah River type which is the last of the Archaic, and dates to about 4000BP. (BP?  - Before Present - so 4000BP is 2000BC?)

If it is that old, I imagined it was from one of the first of our ancient ancestors whose genes evolved their way into most of today's modern artists. 

Wouldn't you think the Indian brave that made this was attempting to add a little pa-zazzz by making it out of this zebra banded crystal?  I think it's prettier than your average spear head.

I like to think so anyway - what do you think?

cheers,
L82Play