Fieldtrip Report:
Fieldtrip Report:
Diamond
Hill Mine,
Antreville, S.C.
Documentary Report,
Smoky Amethyst Crystals,
October 21st-November 2005
photos by: Lee Fleming, Whitney Kirk, Rick Jacquot
Sunday morning the 23rd, Chet arrived early and asked Lee Fleming and myself if we would like to join him and Don in the hole where the smokies were. We joined them and spent a few hours working the vein and recovered a few nice pieces for our collections. After Lee and I were done digging, Chet allowed the other club members to enter the pit and work it, many nice finds were made.
Katie with a nice smoky cluster.
One of Lees specimens.
Small cluster found by me.
Another of my specimens.
After cleaning some of what I had brought home, I began to notice another nice feature of the crystals from this find, almost all the pieces I collected had well defined phantoms showing.
I left the mine that evening about 5:00 and headed for home, several of our members stayed until dark collecting, I was to find out later that they all came away with some excellent finds. Steve Barr called and told me he had lain in the dirt with a headlamp and a screwdriver until 3:15 in the morning to retreive this huge specimen that he calls the "90 pound Behemoth"
Above two pics: the "90 pound Behemoth"
