Field Trip Report:
Spring West Trip,
By John Deney,
May, 2004Got back from my trip to the Mid-west last week and as usual my computer didn't work for a day or two. Spend my first 3 days and last 3 days of my trip with my pregnant daughter and her husband and year old granddaughter. 3 days were spend in NW NE looking for fairburn agates (the state gemstone of SD) and blue agate (the gemstone of NE).
I usually have a rented car so cannot drive far from
the secondary paved roads except for gravel ones and then only if it hasn't rained. I have about 5 sites I usually try to wander around on, usually walk around for 8 hours covering 6 to 10 miles each day. The weather here was great, high 70's except one day. High was 34, constant wind at 35mph plus higher gusts. Hard to stay warm and the wind really tires you out. This area is in drought and there wasn't much erosion since last year. One of my favorite streams was dry most of its length but as I walked upstream, when the rocks started - the second rock was a small beautifully patterned fairburn agate, the only one I found in NE. Saw lots of petrified wood, prairie agates, chalcedony, plus chalcedony with included calcite crystals, some blue chalcedony- not gem quality. Also saw deer, antelope, many hawks and even a red fox.Driving to Custer, I passed through a state park with a large herd of bison. Several standing on the road, also several prairie dog villages. Custer is awesome! Surrounded by pegmatite mines. Nearby are Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore (at Keystone), Black Hills Institute (At Hill City). The weather was great, 80 every day and 35 at night. You can see a hundred miles, no humidity, no smog, you feel like you can reach out and touch a tree a mile away or touch Washington's nose at Rushmore. Western NC and SD are loaded with pegmatite mines. Crystals are larger in SD when you can find them, but there is absolutely no corundum here.
If you're ever here try to visit the Bob Ingersoll and Dan Patch mines - green and blue tourmaline (and schorl), beryl, lepidolite and at least 20 more minerals. West of Custer is TeePee canyon where you find beautiful teepee agates with red, yellow, white colors plus some amethyst inclusions. Also West is Jewel Cave, one of the largest and most beautiful caves in the world. Also West is the Tin Mine with spodumene. In the roof of the mine is a "crystal" about 2' in diameter and 20" long. In a mine East of Custer is a mine where I can always find beryl and schorl crystals.
In Hill City is the Black Hills Institute, they have one of the greatest fossil museums anywhere. They were the ones who discovered the Tyrannosaurs Rex called "Sue" and have a larger one "Stan" here on display. They supply fossils and casts to museums around the world.
Then to Rapid City, joined by one of my daughters and her husband. We spent a week in the Black Hills and Bad Lands looking for agates, visiting mines (like the Home steak gold mine) and other pegmatite's. Walked for days looking for agates. My son-in-law found his first agate and also found his first turtle fossil that wasn't eroded away. We also visited every antique shop in the area (stuff is cheaper here than in SC). They shipped home about 300# of rocks they picked up. Took one day to visit Devils Tower in NE WY. Beautiful sight, walked completely around it. The day before this we spent the day at several collecting sites while we had sleet and snow showers, the days before and after were in the high 70's.
If anyone is going out to SD, I have a friend in Rapid City who would probably be willing to take you out for a day of agate hunting.
