It has been a while since I've been able to extract some nice crystals from an alpine-type fissure.  Finding it a perfect sunny day I knew I couldn't deny myself a bit of rockhounding.  The first couple sites I checked on were a bust.  Construction had not continued or uncovered anything worth investigating.  But my next stop would have me spending the rest of the day.

More construction cutting through a hillside revealed several alpine-type fissures.  Many and most full of baked and brittle quartz without any signs of crystallization.  However, there were so many to choose from that finding a few that did contain goodies was surprisingly not too difficult.  Later, Joe would join me and we continued finding more crystals in other fissures.

The first fissure I found with crystallization that day yielded half a discarded big gulp cup of loose crystals.  There was an unusally large number of tiny slender crystals in that fissure.  Many of them had chlorite inclusions.  One particular specimen contained limonite after pyrite included on the quartz.   

      

North Carolina is not a bad place to be a rockhound. 

Really fantastic pictures there, Scott!
Could you try and get a little closer to that one crazy healed corner.
Some of these crystals have a really wild growth anyway,
with all the attached little crystals going every which a way,
but what in the world is going on in that corner?!
And is that a ghost of a phantom I see in there?
Thanks for the great pics of it.

Third pic below your "pan of crystals". I guess first guess on the attached limonite would be pyrite.

There is definitely pyrite in some of those fissures.
Dave was wondering recently about any localities that have quartz included with pyrite crystals.
Need to get a closer look at this one, but it's a definite maybe.

Here's an interesting picture of a fissure I found in a wall there.  It's real interesting in how it can branch off and even split and rejoin almost like lightening or tree roots.  This was a complex fissure -- may have coined a new term.