Blue Hole Expansion and Hematite…

I decided to go back to the secret spot to see if I could dig a few more blue poker chip crystal clusters out so I could take a few to Ian, my geologist friend in Colorado, as I was planning to drive out there the following week, taking my Mom and Dad out there for their 50th anniversary to see the fall colors and ride the steam train at Durango…they have never been to Colorado in the fall and the last time we rode the train was 45 years ago..when I was a wee little guy.

Docia met me there, she wanted to go up on top and see if she could dig out some more of the rainbow colored druse plates, so we met there and discovered some more rock had been removed recently….

02 Taking Advantage and Looking

…so I decided to look at the floor level and see if I could find any pockets along the newly scraped and dug area, and within moments, found a slight depression and started scratching…

05 Slight Depression Here

 

..and began finding calcite chunks and crystals right away….

06 Little Scratching Produces Crystals

 

07 Crystals and Chunks

 ..and just a little under the surface, I made a discovery I have never found here before…poker chip crystals with a hematite mixture…and some pyrite or chacopyrite mixed in as well…I have def never seen pyrite or chalcopyrite there at all.

08 Hematite and Poker Chips

coming from this pocket here…as you can see there is a little bluff area here too….

09 Hematite Pocket Here

..standard signs of a pocket nearby….but this one contained poker chips and hematite matrix meshed together…def a new one for me. as you can see, I also removed some orangey poker chip crystals too…

10 Hematite & Crystal Pocket

…after cleaning out this shallow pocket that deadended real quickly, I decided to go back over and see if the blue poker chip hole could be expanded. Docia was coming down from the top with two bags full of druse plates…she decided to take a break and see what she could find down below. I moved some rock around in the shaded area and fairly soon found another pocket opening up about a foot from the blue hole…

11 Blue Holes Expanded

…I called Docia over and turned one of the pockets over to her while I worked the new one…within minutes, we both began pulling crystals out of the pockets…here is the one I was working….

12 Another Blue Hole Found

…and here is one of the smaller clusters I pulled out of the new pocket…apologize for the blurriness…

13 Blue Chip Cluster

Docia and I worked those pockets for at least an hour and then she decided to go back up above and see if she could find more druse plates…..I wrapped up what I found in the blue hole and then returned to the same area and scratched around a bit more…and within a few minutes, the bottom dropped out and a hole appeared…

14 Hole Opens Up

…I opened it up a bit more and some rocks fell down in the hole and the splash sounded very deep….

15 Hole Opens Up

…and I opened it up a bit more and reached my hand down into about ten inches of cool water to retrieve a few crystals and plates with crystals….

16 Initial Pocket Hole

…and here is a closer up photo of the crystals…

17 Some Plates Druse and Chips

…I spent a few extra minutes expanding the pocket to one side and pulled a few more crystals out…before running out of steam for the day….at least I had some more nice crystals to take to Emmie and Ian though….

19 Pocket Expands