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
I have cleaned the majority of the specimens I collected, there are still a couple of boxes to go through, but what I have shown are my favorites so far, I decided to leave the iron coating on a couple of the single large crystals I found just to show what they look like when they come out of the ground:
I left the coating on the bottom of this crystal also to better show the unusual growth pattern on the quartz.
Another double terminated crystal cluster.
Big smokies
More big smokies
And more big smokies!
Well defined phantom zones in the tip of the largest crystal in the above pictured cluster.
The last couple of weeks of digging at Diamond Hill have produced some of the best material ever seen from that site. I am glad that our club, The Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association played a direct role in conjunction with the owner of the mine to be able to make these fantastic specimens come to light after millions of years. Now is the time to get to Diamond Hill to add some of these great specimens to your collections before they are all gone!
The following pages are supplemental reports and pictures of the continuing digs made by our club members in the smoky pit during the months of November and December 2005
