August
2, 2009 The Ray Mica Mine (aka Wray mine) located roughly 3 miles SSE
of Burnsville in Yancey Co., NC.
The Wray mining company stopped mining in 1944 as it became
unprofitable.
It
was originally mined for the mica, however, beryl is
also
found within the mica-rich pegmatite they were mining. So
today
Dave Hart and myself hiked the trail up the mountain where we tried our
luck at finding the beryls hidden among the tailings.
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It
is almost difficult to take a bad picture in the mountains as all the
scenery is beautiful.
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A
quarter mile hike up the trail and pieces of pegmatite can already be
seen scattered all around.
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A
small mountain stream flows through the middle of it all.
It's
perfect for screening the material for beryl.
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Does
this rock have beryl in it? Nope, just a rock.
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This
is one of the adits of the Ray mine.
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This
is a sample of some tailings in my 1/4 in. screen I washed off
in the stream. Can you find the beryl?
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Dave
told me that this dog has greeted him for the several years he has gone
to the Ray mine. And now he's licking his
lips because he smells the beef jerky I'm eating. He then
explained to us that the admission fee was one piece of beef jerky.
We were happy to oblige.
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Here
is a nice garnet I found surface hunting the tailings next to
the stream..
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This
is a piece of quartz with gemmy garnet running through it.
The sun is reflecting off of mica.
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This
is two pieces of beryl I found on this trip. I found
them by screening the tailings using the 1/4 in. screen.
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Given
that this was once an active
mica mine, mica can be found everywhere. A large
piece of
mica like this is not uncommon.
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