Fieldtrip report:
Hackney Farm Staurolite,
Fannin County, Georgia,
June 19th, 2004__________________
Hello, members we had a great day of digging at the Hackney Farm in Georgia today. The weather was great, not to hot and no rain. I met with Grant Kidd, Cindi Probst and Dave Ladendorf at the SuperPetz parking lot at 7:00 and we headed to the mine, we arrived around 10:00 and got into the creek at various locations and began to dig and sift the creek gravel for staurolite crystals. The Hackney Farm is one of the most famous sites for this material, there is a variety of different shapes to be found. Dave and Grant found the best "Maltese Crosses", I found a few but not as nice as theirs, here is a pic of one of mine:
There are other shapes and sizes:
Here is a 2" 6 sided crystal in matrix.
These "X" crystals are common.
The most abundant material found is the single bladed crystals, you will find many perfect crystals.
I call these the one legged crystals, you will find many X crystals that are broken that resemble these, but these are formed this way with only one leg.
This crystal is one of the ones I had never found at this site, it is called a "Christian Cross", I was lucky enough to find this one today.
About half of what I found today.
After packing up and heading out, Grant showed us an excellent site to collect Pyrite cubes in matrix, some of the cubes reach 1.5" on a side, we will plan another trip to that location and a couple of others in a month or so, until next time , happy rockhunting, Rick
