Fieldtrip report:
Ray Mica Mine,
Yancey County, N.C.,
M.A.G.M.A. trip with
University of Southern Mississippi,
October 22nd, 2004___________________
Hello members, our club has been leading school groups and universities to the Ray Mines for Geology class fieldtrips, my friends at the Colburn Museum had recommended our club to these groups for mine tours in the area. I had met with Lin Pope of the Southern Mississippi University last fall and had started planning a trip for them this year, we met at our usual place, the parking lot at the Silver Armadillo at 9:00 Friday morning, the students were anxious to get started, the group had used my book as a guide for the previous two days to visit several mines in the area, Little Pine, Ridgecrest, Goldsmith, they also visited the Copper Basin site, this site has again been reclaimed by the EPA due to runoff from the mine into the creek which runs next to the site, until further notice the EPA has banned people from the site until they can finish their cleanup, this took place several years ago at this same site and it was around four years that no one was allowed in, it may be another four years this time. I showed the group a large selection of the different minerals to be found at the Ray and told them of the flood that had recently rearranged the site. Once we arrived, Lin gave Bassey a generous parking fee for the two vanloads of students and our vehicle, several members of MAGMA were already at the site, I showed them where to find the various minerals in the creek and pointed out a couple of spots that had not been dug. I have to give this group credit, they were finding beryl within five minutes of arriving at the site, a few days before I had encountered a University from Florida and the only thing they found was what our club members gave them. As you may have figured out by my rambling, I didn't bring my camera to the mine so all I have are a couple of specimen pics from this trip.
I found this 6 pound matrix specimen under about an inch of gravel in the creek. It has five large beryl crystals showing with three in a row on this side.
This tourmaline couldn't decide which way to grow.
