October 31, 2009

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October 31, 2009 Back to the same spot as last week. Today I found the source of the crystals. The crystals came
from alpine-type fissures present through one area of this location. I realized that the rounded and water worn rocks scattered
all about the area were pushed there and spread out by a bulldozer. This confused the geology. There was about 5 inches
of newly excavated and mixed up dirt that had been pushed and spread over in situ earth. After a bit of scraping with the
mattock I began to reveal the fissures.

It doesn't look like much but when the quartz was located in this area, there was always crystallization present.

Carefully extracting the contents of the fissure, I immediately began to see crystallization.

An edge of a crystal is found after a few more shovels of dirt.

It was a nice smoky crystal with an undamaged termination.

This picture shows the alpine-type fissure containing crystallized quartz. The matrix containing
the fissure shows the foliation running perpendicular to the fissure -- a signature of alpine-type fissures.

Two very nice crystal terminations are revealed when extracting the contents of another fissure in the same area.

Reticulated rutile is present on the side of this crystal. These rutile crystals are unusually
large when compared to other reticulated rutile specimens I have found in Wake County.

Here is a close up of the reticulated rutile.

This was a very successful trip. I was very satisfied with my finds and look forward to going back to search
for more alpine-type fissures. Wtih Joe's help, a bit of detective work, and some luck, I was able to locate the
fissures in the area. Big thanks goes to Joe for revealing the location of this great area!

This crystal cluster was found on the following day while excavating more fissures that were discovered nearby.
It was interesting to see that each fissure averaged a little under a foot in length and around 2 or 3 inches thick.
Each fissure usually produced one small prize. Each time I found a fissure it was like opening a little treasure box.
Sometimes the prize was small, and sometimes a real treasure.

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