Field Trip Report:

minerfun

Bessemer City Quarry
Bessemer City, NC
March 6th, 2010

Official Field Trip of the
Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association

photos by Richard Jacquot

Another great trip to the Bessemer City quarry today for the MAGMA club.

Kay Jones was able to regain access to this site for the Gaston club back in December after years of no collecting for rockhounds. I was able to setup a MAGMA trip and we are planning another MAGMA trip to the nearby Kings Mountain quarry soon, date to be announced!

I was surprised to see over 80 members in attendance at this dig, I guess cabin fever is getting to everyone.

Upper collecting area.

Our hosts Mark and Ken.

Nancy

John D.

Jim and Grandson

Some garnets in matrix Tom found.

Tom and his new wife.

We had some micro mount experts on hand to identify minerals for the members to include, Henry Barwood and family, Jason Smith, and of course Laurie Adams.

Some of the things we found were nice green tabular apatites, siderite, albite, bertrandite, cassiterite, eosphorite and dravite (all micro, of course). My son found some large arsenopyrite crystals and, of course, a small beryl crystal. Henry

Steve Bonney drove down from Kentucky to join us for the day.


Big spodumene crystal in matrix that Josh pounded out.

Josh whittled it out, but it ended up going home with Mark.

Some pics from Kay Jones;

Is that Steve Barr or the Marlboro Man?

Me and John hunting a dump pile.

Lorrell

Rutilated quartz found by Kay.

Garnet rock found by Kay.

Tourmaline found by Kay.

Another great MAGMA trip, I'll post the date for the Kings Mountain trip soon!

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