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Friday, September 17, 2010

Crystal Point Diamond Mine, Williamsport, Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania, USA

I was recently asked about quartz collecting in PA.
I have not actually collected at Crystal Point Diamond Mine in Williamsport PA.  Several years ago, I was in Williamsport on business but did not have a chance to visit the mine.


There are plenty of reference to the  Crystal Point Diamond Mine.
The http://www.raytowneinc.com/CrystalPointDiamondMines.htm link is broken probably because the content is no longer on   http://www.raytowneinc.com.
 
If someone has visited the mine recently, please post a comment or email and tell me when you were last there and how was the collecting experience.

  Thanks Gary K.

from MinDat.org
Crystal Point Diamond Mine, Williamsport, Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania, USA


Reference on Treasure Hunting Wiki

Crystal Point Diamond Mines
PA's Ultimate Crystal Mine
1307 Park Ave.
Williamsport, PA 17701

Ph. (570) 323-6783

Email: rpsmith@csrlink.net



Data exported from DRC 2.0 (c) 2009 Gary Kindel



Mine:
Crystal Point
City: Mine ID: 340242
County Lycoming Seq Nbr: 1857_4-01593
State PENNSYLVANIA Latitude
Country USA Longitude
Alternate Mine Names
Topographic Map
Map Name Map Scale 250' Quad Map
Map Coordinates
Meridian Township Range Section Sub Section
Zone Hemisphere Northing Easting
Geology and Ore Deposit Information
Deposit Model Deposit Type Deposit Size Deposit Age Deposit Form
Deposit Desc:
Local Structure
Non-Ore Minerals
Ore Minerals
Mineral Occurrences
Mineral Species Variety Strunz Frequency
Hematite Not specified 4/C.04-20 Reported
Quartz Not specified 4/D.01-10 Reported


Thursday, September 9, 2010

Lake Superior Agate Locations

Here is a summary of Lake Superior Agate collecting locations I recently googled.
 
From http://www.ehow.com/list_6313345_places-lake-superior-agates.html

Distribution





  • Lake Superior agates were distributed by the Superior Lobe Ice Age glacier approximately 10,000 years ago. They can be found anywhere along the path of the glacier, which includes most of the eastern two-thirds of Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.



  • Primary Locations




  • All of the 2,700-mile Lake Superior shoreline is prime territory for lake Superior agate hunting. So are the waterways emptying into the Great Lake. Some rockhounds believe that the southern and western shores yield more agates.



  • Secondary Locations




  • Virtually any location in eastern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa where rocks are found in numbers can contain Lake Superior agates. They even can be found in large cities like Minneapolis.




  • Along the North Shore of Lake Superior
    (from http://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/nature/beaches/beaches_north_shore.html)

    The glint of agates

    It was drizzling again when we reached Paradise Beach east of town, and we sat in the car until Peter said, “This rain will make the agates shine, right?’’ He was right, so we hunched under umbrellas and plunged our hands into the clean, glistening pebbles as if they were King Midas’ coins.
    We did hit gold, a brown agate crowded with white eyes that looked already polished; Lake Superior acts as a giant tumbler.
    At the mouth of the Kadunce River, we found a few more, and also a cleared spot on the beach where another artistic someone had arranged the flat cobblestones into a sunburst pattern, twisting like the tail of a comet.
    Agate hunters on Minnesota's Beaver River.
    © Beth Gauper
    Agate hunters search at the mouth of the Beaver River just east of Beaver Bay.
    But we found our most success at the curving, protected beach at the mouth of the Beaver River, just east of Beaver Bay, which the “Rock Picker’s Guide’’ calls the best agate beach on the North Shore.
    We turned up an orange and cream agate with faint bands, then another with a big yellow eye, and other rocks that made us marvel at their infinite variations.

    Other rock pickers were there, too, including Dave Hillman of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who was on a “rock vacation’’ with his sons Josh, 14, and Kai, 11.
    “We worked all up the coast,’’ he said. “We went to Temperance, and Gooseberry, and this is the place.’’
    Heading back down 61, we stopped at Gooseberry Falls State Park and right away found a small topaz agate at the mouth of the Gooseberry River. But we had even more fun climbing the cliff up to the adjoining point, where we sat amid the late-summer wildflowers, butterflies and buzzing crickets.
    And we stopped at Burlington Bay in Two Harbors, which adjoins the municipal campground and has some real sand, a rarity on the shore.

    On Scenic 61, we turned off to Stony Point, passing the storm-watchers’ post on our way to a quiet meadow with an abandoned fish house, where the woman who lives across the road was reading an Isabel Allende book on the narrow, half-hidden beach.
    We had one last rock hunt in the sun at Brighton Beach at Duluth's Kitchi-Gammi Park, where local teens were stretched out on the smooth rocks, basking like sea lions. Dropping into the agate-hunter’s hunch, we joined Douglas Kvidera of Cambridge, Minn., and his 7-year-old son Evan.
    “My son has shoeboxes full of rocks,’’ Kvidera said. “One of these days, we’re going to have to say he has to organize them into one.’’
    We turned up a few tiny agates for our modest collection. Of course, we could have bought bigger and better ones, already polished, for a dollar or two at the Agate Shop in Beaver Bay. But then we would have missed out on the thrill of the hunt.
    “It’s frustrating,’’ Peter said. “But when you find an agate, it’s really fun.’’

    Best agate-hunting: The mouth of the Beaver River at Beaver Bay.

    More Locations
    (from http://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/nature/beaches/finding_agates.htm)

    Beaches of Tettegouche and Temperance state parks, as well as the edges of inland rivers, such as the Poplar and the Onion ("not Cascade; never found anything there'') and Paradise Beach, 14 miles north of Grand Marais and just south of C.R. Magney State Park.

    Permits for hunting in Moose Lake

    Moose Lake, half an hour south of Duluth off I-35, is renowned for its gravel pits. To get a free permit and directions to four gravel pits, visit the Chamber of Commerce office at 4524 Arrowhead Lane, at the junction of Minnesota 61 and County Road 73 near the big moose.
    The office is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the fishing opener in May, then 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.

    You also can get the permit and directions by email, mlchamber@mooselake-mn.com. For more information, call 218-485-4145 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              218-485-4145      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.




    Monday, September 6, 2010

    Mines in Dodge County Wisconsin

    NameLatLongTownshipRangeSectionSub_Section
    28 RowsData exported from DRC 2.0 (c) 2009 Gary Kindel
    IRON RIDGE MINE43.424722-88.534444N/AN/AN/AN/A
    MAYVILLE MINE43.4375-88.531667N/AN/AN/AN/A
    MARTIN KADDATZ GRAVEL QUARRY43.208333-88.730278009 N015 E33NW
    SHERWOOD QUARRY43.245278-88.731667009 N015 E17SW
    MULTHAUF PIT43.257222-88.478889009 N017 E10W2W2SW
    SANITARY TRANSFER & LANDFLL INC PIT43.300278-88.505833010 N017 E29SE
    BOHNERT PIT43.365-88.589722011 N016 E33N/A
    MERGET PIT43.464444-88.514722011 N017 E07NW
    MAYVILLE WHITE LIME QUARRY43.447778-88.538611011 N016 E01SW
    SCHOPPE PIT43.448333-88.6075011 N016 E05SE
    BARTOSCH PIT43.418333-88.606944011 N016 E08E2
    ROLL PIT43.417778-88.586944011 N016 E09NE
    HELEN H WESTPHAL QUARRY43.33-88.86010 N014 E17NE
    BUDDE-MILLER QUARRIES43.4325-88.805556011 N014 E10SE
    KOHLOFF QUARRY43.511667-88.832778012 N014 E16NE
    MILLER QUARRY43.496111-88.895012 N013 E24W2
    J MADIGAN PIT43.545278-88.951667013 N013 E33SE
    KRANICH PIT43.405833-88.600833011 N016 E16W2W2W2
    ALLEN RUDOLPH PIT43.312778-88.665010 N015 E24N/A
    WESTERN LIME-KNOWLES QUARRY43.584444-88.506667013 N017 E18E2
    C C LINCK GARAGE QUARRY43.445-88.793056011 N014 E02SESWSE
    HORICON PIT43.45-88.592222N/AN/AN/AN/A
    FARMERSVILLE QUARRY43.566667-88.483333N/AN/AN/AN/A
    DODGE COUNTY HWY. DEPT.43.406667-88.7N/AN/AN/AN/A
    CITY OF WATERTOWN QUARRY43.198333-88.723333N/AN/AN/AN/A
    FARMERSVILLE QUARRY43.616667-88.491667N/AN/AN/AN/A
    SCHMIDT PIT43.198333-88.723333N/AN/AN/AN/A
    WATERTOWN QUARRY43.198333-88.723333N/AN/AN/AN/A

    Saturday, September 4, 2010

    Geology and Minerals of Rib Mountain near Wausau Wisconsin

    Geology of Rib Mountain
       from: A GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF RIB MOUNTAIN, WISCONSIN
                  Keith Montgomery Ph.D.
                  Department of Geography-Geology
                   University of Wisconsin - Marathon County


    Syenite is an intrusive igneous rock (as is the red granite for which Marathon County is justly famous) which contains very little to no quartz.  An intrusive igneous rock is formed when a mass of molten rock material or "magma" is injected into the landscape from below and solidifies beneath ground. Another term for intrusive rocks is "plutonic" (named after the Classical god of the underworld, Pluto). Large volumes of magma cool to form a type of "pluton" we call a "batholith" (see details in notes on intrusive igneous rock). The slow cooling that occurs beneath ground allows good-sized crystals to form and so intrusive igneous rocks are fairly coarse-grained. (This is also true of granite -- you can see its individual crystals as in the note on red granite, above -- but syenite, in contrast to granite, has very little quartz in it.)

    The intrusion of the syenite's magma happened about 1.5 billion years ago, or roughly in the middle part of the Proterozoic Eon. About this time in this area several other intrusions occurred. These other intrusions include:

        * First, the huge "Wolf River" Granite pluton that starts just east of Highway J in Marathon County and extends across into Marinette County;
        * Second, there are two other syenite plutons immediately to the north of Rib Mountain. One of these (the "Wausau Pluton") forms the hill the Westwood Conference Center sits atop, while the other (the "Stettin Pluton") forms a hill north of Highway 29, about 3 miles to the west of Wausau. You can just about make out both of these hills from Rib Mountain if you know where to look. The syenite of the Wausau Pluton is exposed along the north wall of the "29 Super" parking lot on 17th. St. and along Highway 51 to the west of that. Interestingly, the Wausau Pluton also contains some small quartzite xenoliths, near the summit of the hill. There is also a small syenite mass that forms a small hill south of Mosinee Hill, along Highway 51 near American Concrete.
        * And third, there is the "Ninemile" granite pluton, located between Highways N and 153 south of Rib Mountain, and exposed nearby along Highway N about 2-3 miles west of Highway KK. This granite is "rotten" in several places and is quarried for the gravel this provides (this is the pink stone often found in gravel lots and on the shoulders of many roads around the county). This last pluton has no appreciable relief and underlies much of Ninemile Swamp.

    Despite the size of these intrusions, we are not certain of what was happening in the subsurface to melt material there and form the magmas. Today in the world, magma that leads to the formation of granite and syenite is found in zones where ocean floor is being recycled into Earth's Mantle as a result of "sea-floor" spreading (see previous note on intrusive igneous rock). These zones are termed "subduction" zones, the largest and most continuous of which today forms the so-called "Ring of Fire" of the Pacific Rim. These are also zones of explosive volcanic activity and mountain building (think of the Andes and the Cascades, for example). Such intense geologic activity was also true of the area of today's Marathon County between 2.0-1.5 billion years ago. Although they are not exactly contemporaneous, perhaps the intrusion of the plutons is in some way related to this activity.



    Rib Mountain is composed of a single large block of the rock quartzite, as are each of its two neighbors. These blocks are embedded in a much larger mass of a rock called "syenite." This syenite can be found at the base of the mountain, down at the level of Highways N and NN. Some of the syenite is exposed to view on the south side of Highway N just west of the junction with Highway KK. You might think of Rib Mountain as an iceberg, with more of the quartzite being below the level of the surrounding syenite plain than above it. The same is true of Mosinee and Hardwood Hills. However, don't take this "iceberg" analogy literally: The quartzite isn't really floating in the syenite, but the general image that this conjures up of the quartzite being "embedded" in the syenite is a good one.


    From  Google Books - American journal of science, Volume 173 page 287

    In the north-central part of Wisconsin, within the general pre-Cambrian area, there are widespread occurrences of igneous rocks intrusive in the Huronian sedimentaries.f Chief among these intrusives is a complex magma, consisting of various phases of granite, quartz-syenite and nepheliue-syenite. Pegmatitic modifications are a characteristic feature of the granite-syenite magma, both nepheline and quartz-bearing pegmatites being developed in considerable quantity. In several phases of the quartz-bearing pegmatite, a small octahedral mineral was observed that proved upon investigation to be a variety of the rare group of pyrochlore minerals, the principal constituents of which are the metals of the rare earths.
    The minerals associated with the pyrochlore in the pegmatite consist mainly of quartz, alkali-feldspar and acmite. Other minerals in the pegmatite veins of the locality are lithia-mica, lepidomelane, varieties of acmite-pyroxene high in alumina and potassium, rutile, fluorite, and several zirconium-bearing minerals. The pegmatite and associated-granite and syenite are closely related in composition, and are characterized by a relatively high content of alumina and soda. In most respects the granite and nepheline-syenite are similar to the wellknown occurrences of nepheline-bearing and associated rocks of Arkansas, Ontario, Canada, Essex County, Mass. and the Christiana region of southern Norway.
    The pyrochlore was found in the pegmatite occurring along the road in the S.W. 1/4 of Sec. 22, T. 29, K. 6 E , about nine miles northwest of Wausau. It occurs only in small crystals of nearly perfect octahedral form, varying in form up to about 1/8 inch (3""") in diameter. The mineral was found in small quantity, and although after its identification further search was made for it, only a small additional amount was secured. It is likely, however, that the pyrochlore will be found elsewhere in the pegmatite veins of the immediate locality although very probably only in small quantity.

    Mineral List

    Aegirine
    Agrellite
    Albite
    Almandine
    Anatase
    Anhydrite
    Ankerite
    Arsenopyrite
    Augite
    Baryte
    Bavenite
    Bertrandite
    Beryl
    var: Aquamarine
    Biotite
    Boulangerite
    Brookite
    Calaverite
    Calcite
    var: Manganoan Calcite
    Ceriopyrochlore-(Ce) (TL)
    Cheralite
    'Chlorite Group'
    'Columbite-Tantalite'
    Cookeite
    Euclase
    Eudialyte
    var: Eucolite

    Fluorapatite
    Fluorite
    Galena
    Goethite
    Gold
    Grossular
    Hematite
    Hisingerite
    Ilmenite
    Jamesonite
    Lepidocrocite
    Microcline
    Microlite
    Miserite
    'Monazite'
    Muscovite
    Opal
    var: Opal-AN

    'Parisite'
    Phenakite
    'Psilomelane'
    Quartz
    Romanèchite
    Rutile
    Sanidine
    Schorl
    Siderite
    Sphalerite
    Stibiconite
    Stilpnomelane
    'Synchysite'
    'Synchysite Group'
    Titanite
    'Tourmaline'
    Uranpyrochlore
    Xenotime-(Y)
    Zircon

    Additional References:

    Falster, A. U., 1987 , "Minerals of the Pegmatite Bodies in the Wausau Pluton, Marathon County, Wisconsin", Rocks and Minerals, vol. 62, #3, pp. 188-195.
    Min.Rec.: 12:95.


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