Fieldtrip Report:
Fieldtrip Report:
The
Leah and Becky
Diamond Hill Christmas
M.A.G.M.A. Dig!
December 26-27, 2006
photos and text by: Lee Fleming
Began early on Tuesday. I got up and left around 3:30 AM and drove the 5.5 hour trip with my eye lids held up with tooth picks. I arrived at 9:00 to find only a couple of people already there and digging in the pits. It had lightly rained for most of the trip; thus I was expecting to find the whole mine area covered in thick mud. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the mud was generally confined to the roads and parking and the pits were relatively dry with no standing water in the areas where digging occurs.
As the morning started, I concentrated on the skeletal pit and was soon joined by Jim Olsen. Together, we concentrated on a promising looking red clay vein and soon were pulling out nice skeletal plates. By mid-after noon, we both had filled our buckets and containers with clay covered specimen and we called it quits. The others who had arrived during the day worked the smoky pit and surface collected.
On Wednesday morning the skys were clear but the temperature was 27 degrees. There was frost on the cars and the ground was cold to sit on. I returned to the clay seam that I had worked on Tuesday and soon began to pull out plates of crystals. It was nice to fill another container with good specimens. Finally, about 10:30, Becky came over and I turned the seam over to her. About noon, we were joined by other MAGMA members in the pit and everyone soon was digging like crazy.
Becky and Jim
Marcy
Shawna
Ron, Rachael, and Alex Helms
