PRETTY VALLEY QUARTZ

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Quartz crystals turn up in the wash at Pretty Valley all the time. Many of them are hardly waterworn; the occasional piece is. The majority of the schorl tourmaline and topaz is hardly worn either, and together these represent a suite of minerals which has a different origin from the sapphire, zircon and black spinel.

We can speculate all we like about the origin of the second group of minerals, which have no doubt come from a basalt source somewhere not far distant. The origin of the first group is probably the Kingsgate-like pipes which occur on the hill to the north-west. It is possible that the topaz and tourmaline have another source as they are not typically found with quartz at Kingsgate.

The reference from which the map is derived is titled “Crystal Report No.14 Kingsgate Crystal Field (Part 1)”. The DIGS reference is GS1943/013. It is part of a group of reports relating to the search for quality quartz crystals during World War II. If there is a Part 2, I haven’t found it yet.

From the map it would be reasonable to assume that there are other, undiscovered quartz pipes upstream from the fossicking location since the pipes shown are over the hill in the drainage area of a tributary of Bladey Grass Creek. This stream comes in on the western side some distance downstream from the fossicking location and it is likely that it too will be carrying quartz crystals. It’s not likely that the sapphire group of gemstones will be found in that creek, but you never know until it has been checked out.

As has been reported in an earlier Blog entry, there is a little gold in Bladey Grass Creek and several times I have been told of pieces of a green gemmy mineral, probably tourmaline, being found there. If anyone turns up something unusual there, let us know by way of a comment here. I need to remind readers that this is private property and that trespassers (poachers or thieves) are certainly not welcome. Enquire through the Australian Lapidary Forum (ALF) if you would like to visit this fascinating place.

You can experience gem hunting around Glen Innes through my You Tube site until you pay the area a visit. Click here . Several videos deal with Pretty Valley. For related Blog entries on Pretty Valley, use the search box at the top of the page.

I also have playlists on the Blue Mountains, Glen Innes and New Zealand.

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https://johnsnewenglandminerals.blogspot.com/2013/12/list-of-all-blog-entries-to-date.html

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Zircon, topaz and quartz from Pretty Valley

MINERAMA GEM AND MINERAL SHOW GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

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Glen Innes Examiner report March 2010

Minerama is an annual gem and mineral show, held since 1990 in the NSW country town of Glen Innes. The district is celebrated for its gem and mineral deposits, which bring thousands of people to the town every year on gem hunting trips (fossickers is what we Aussies call such people, and I’ve been one of them most of my life).

Dealer pavilion at the Showground, 1994

Outside traders at the Showground 1994

The event is a natural outcome of the district’s mineral wealth. Not only do traders fill the auditorium of the town’s Services Club (* now back at the Showground) and overflow onto the adjoining parklands but hundreds go out into the countryside on organised trips. The combination is an excellent one and Minerama is reputed to be the largest annual event of its type in the state.

In the early years, Minerama was held at the town’s showground but relocated to the Services Club in 2000. Another feature of those days was the publication of an annual mineral booklet. Copies of these can 

Inside the Services Club Auditorium

be freely downloaded from the Australian Lapidary Forum (ALF) website. Details of how to do this can be found here .(Not downloadable from this site now.)

Further information about Minerama (including how to reserve a trading site) can be found at these sites: Glen Innes Tourism (here) (not this address anymore) and Minerama (here) 

Note: Minerama has now returned to the showground.

Tailgaters

Why not join the enthusiastic crowd who come to Glen Innes each year for the second weekend in March? I’m sure you will be back again the next year if you do, and maybe in between for the rich fossicking opportunities the district has to offer.

You can experience fossicking around Glen Innes through my You Tube website here. I also have playlists on Glen Innes, the Blue Mountains and New Zealand.

https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos

https://johnsnewenglandminerals.blogspot.com/2013/12/list-of-all-blog-entries-to-date.html

All New England and other Geology blogs and videos

Garnet Corner Minerama 2004

 

My Minerama finds from Yarrow Creek 2012

RAINY SWAMP NEAR GLEN INNES NSW AUSTRALIA

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As a gemstone producing location, Rainy Swamp is unusual in several ways. Firstly, the place is not shown on any of the maps depicting sapphire localities and secondly the wash does not appear to be derived from any source nearby. In fact, I would suggest that the gems are being recycled from remnants of an old stream bed a little above the level of the present day swamp. Conversations with people who mined here 40 years ago confirm that the wash horizon could not be traced further upstream around the edge of the swamp.

Furthermore, everything points to a different

Typical small gems

source from that of the gemstones in Yarrow Creek (into which Rainy Swamp Spring Creek actually flows). The percentage of cutters is lower, the zircons are a different shade of pink, there are no garnets and there is an abundance of schorl tourmaline. Quartz crystals are frequent and topaz is found occasionally. If anything, there is a strong resemblance to the mineral assemblage in Back Creek, the next stream to the south. I would venture to suggest that the Rainy Swamp occurrence is a remnant of a former course of Back Creek.

 
The bulk of the material found at Rainy Swamp seems to be miners' waste, though there have been pockets of untouched wash found in less accessible places. It is a very rocky area and the best stones have been found underneath the many granite boulders.

Most fossickers enjoy Rainy Swamp because there is always something to be found, whether it be just a few small sapphires and zircons, some nice quartz crystals, chunks of black tourmaline or the elusive piece of topaz.

120 carat topaz

Tourmaline crystal

An article appeared in "Gold Gem and Treasure" magazine in September 1999 called "Summer Fossicking in the Ranges Around Glen Innes". Although the location is not named (naturally) it is Rainy Swamp. What is described is a part of the old lead which the miners must have missed. Unfortunately, on our many visits we have been unable to find a similar spot due to the disturbance of the hillside since 1999.
Check out my gem hunting videos from around Glen Innes here . I also have playlists on Glen Innes, the Blue Mountains and New Zealand. Videos on Rainy Swamp fossicking may be found here  and here.

https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos

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All New England and other Geology blogs and videos

THE BIG SAPPHIRE YARROW CREEK NSW AUSTRALIA

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The “big one” eludes most gem hunters, though the thought of it drives us all to keep searching year after year. My largest sapphire turned up in 1989 and it was 4 times larger than any other cutter I’ve found in the years since.

The "Big One" and a few of its friends from the same hole

A fiction based on the circumstances of the find appears in the Minerama book on Cassiterite (1994), page 28. (You can download this book from the Australian Lapidary Forum – ALF – site. See the Blog entry for Thursday 4^th July 2013). The real stone wasn’t 200 carats, only 120. Nor was it blue. Its colour varied from green to mauve to inky blue depending on how you looked at it. 

The stone was cut by Bill Gowlett from the Gem Centre at Inverell, using existing flaws to reduce it to 5 stones with a total cut weight of around 40 carats. A photograph of the 5 stones appears in the Minerama book on Sapphire (2000), page 22.

It has proved quite difficult to photograph the cut stones in anything like the colour they appear to the eye. I can see the green colour, but the camera sees it as mauve. One of the smaller stones seems to be brown in daylight but green by artificial light.

The old channel referred to in the story really exists at the “Down the Hill” location on Yarrow Creek. If anyone wants to remove tonnes of sand and gravel (in a dry season, of course) there is still the chance of another “big one”. 

Check out my gem hunting videos from around Glen Innes here. I also have playlists on Glen Innes, the Blue Mountains and New Zealand.

https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos

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The second largest stone - 11 carats

BERYL FROM TORRINGTON, NSW AUSTRALIA

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Various Torrington localities

Gem and mineral collectors who visit Torrington are mostly interested in the three minerals quartz, beryl and topaz. Of these, beryl is perhaps the most desirable, especially in its varieties aquamarine and emerald, both of which occur at Torrington.

I have already written several Blog entries dealing with Torrington which I recommend you should read. Take note of the reference material listed and if you haven’t downloaded these yet be sure to do so. The entries are: DOWNLOADING PDF DOCUMENTS FROM DIGS, TORRINGTON – ESSENTIAL READING, HEFFERNAN’S WOLFRAM MINE TORRINGTON, MINERAMA BOOK DOWNLOADS FROM ALF, and SCRUBBY GULLY, TORRINGTON NSW. Use the search box at the top of the page to locate them.

Other useful references include: The Mineral Industry of New South Wales (6) Beryllium (EO Rayner 1958) and the Grafton-Maclean Metallogenic Data Sheets which can be located in DIGS by a search. Anyone seriously interested in the minerals of northern New England should study this document and the companion volume on Inverell.

The two quotes below from this latter reference provide an excellent background and give locations which can be tracked down using The Mole Tableland 1:50 000 “Geology and Mineral Occurrences” map, also downloadable from DIGS.

“Beryl gems.                                

Beryl, aquamarine and rarely emerald are present in small quantities in watercourses draining the Torrington Pendant. Notable localities include Highland Home body (502), Diggers Creek and Flagstone Creek and Scrubby Gully mine.”

The Emerald Mine, Cow Flat

“Beryl and emeralds.

There are 35 occurrences containing beryl and/or emerald. Most of these occurrences are located on or near the sedimentary rock/granite contact in association with silexite. This is especially the case in and around the Torrington Pendant (Emerald mine, 459; Heffernans mine, 1332; and Griffeys emerald occurrence, 463). The beryl occurs in lodes controlled by vertical joints and shears. The beryl generally occurs as one of several gangue minerals in association with quartz and/or topaz along with, mainly, wolframite and bismuth and, to a lesser extent, cassiterite and other polymetallic minerals.

The beryl is generally found as coarse euhedral individual light green, yellow–green to blue–green to green (emerald) crystals within quartz–biotite–topaz and/or feldspar pegmatites. Rare aquamarine has also been found. Beryl also occurs in banded coarse crystalline veins up to several centimetres wide (Smith's mica [lode], 462) and in massive crystalline pods up to 25 cm in size (Chance Find [prospect], 1130). Light green to clear beryls with multiple emerald bands have also been found at the Emerald mine (459).

Scrubby Gully Alluvials

There are three known groups of emerald occurrences, all with a northeast trend. These are de Milhous (1191) and associated mines, the Emerald mine (459), and Griffeys emerald occurrence (463). De Milhous mine is the largest recorded producer and the only known commercial emerald deposit in New South Wales. There the emeralds were found largely in bunches and in many places firmly embedded in a quartz–topaz matrix (Mumme 1982). The lode is polymetallic, consisting of a quartz–feldspar pegmatite that has undergone argillic and kaolinitic alteration. The emeralds are associated with minor cassiterite and base metals, with banded quartz, topaz, fluorite (purple and green), arsenopyrite, kaolinised feldspar, coarse biotite and muscovite. The total recorded production is 26 000 carats of unknown quality produced mainly from 1891 to 1909. Several other lodes have been worked within two kilometres (southwest and northwest) of the mine. These are Goggitts shaft (1183); The Colossal mine (1186), The Glen (1187) and Bald Nob mine (1194).” (NOTE: the de Milhous' mine is the same as the one known as The Emmaville Emerald Mine. I have written a blog on this locality.)

Check out my gem hunting videos from around Glen Innes here . I also have playlists on Glen Innes, the Blue Mountains and New Zealand.

https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos

https://johnsnewenglandminerals.blogspot.com/2013/12/list-of-all-blog-entries-to-date.html

All New England and other Geology blogs and videos

Specimen 15mm X 4mm. Emerald Mine, Cow Flat (Torrington)

MISCELLANEOUS MINERALS FROM YARROW CREEK NEAR GLEN INNES NSW

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All gem hunters in Yarrow Creek soon become familiar with the most abundant minerals to be found there. Quartz, as always, leads all the rest in quantity. Mostly it's waterworn, but the occasional near pristine crystal turns up. 

Along with the quartz, orthoclase felspar is sometimes seen. No doubt, both the quartz and felspar are derived from veins in the granite, which outcrops in most places fossickers go. 

Black spinel (pleonaste, blackjack), corundum (a high proportion of which is gem quality sapphire), zircon and pyrope garnet are found everywhere. Sometimes the vagaries of the currents during floods cause the zircon and garnet to be concentrated separately, though always with spinel and corundum.

The less common minerals,but still common enough to be found every visit or so, are enstatite and schorl tourmaline. Topaz is found once in a while, perhaps one or two pieces in a year of regular weekly outings. Once a blue specimen was found. Just once a pale specimen of ruby  turned up in my sieve, and this has already been illustrated in the blog entry on pink sapphires.

Finally, there are the miscellaneous things that turn up, which, while not all one-offs, will bother most 

Ilmenite

fossickers trying to identify them. Ilmenite is reasonably common but not normally noticed. It occurs as cylindrical, metallic lumps, though why it is in this form I do not know .

carnelian 3cm across

Silicified wood 11cm long

I've seen the occasional piece of agate, though I failed to photograph one. The photo of the specimen of orange chalcedony (carnelian) is a one-off, as are the silicified wood and rutile. The chalcedony would be related to the silicification of wood trapped beneath the nearby basalt flows, though I would have expected them to be more abundant. 

Rutile 2cm long

The specimen of rutile is an unexpected find, mainly because I have never seen another. Such a vast amount of rutile has accumulated in heavy mineral deposits along our coasts that I would have expected more to turn up in creeks like Yarrow which drain in that direction.

Lastly, here is a specimen about which I know nothing. It was found amongst the sieve concentrates, so it's reasonably dense. It doesn't look like the rest of the corundum, which I thought it was initially. It remains a mystery mineral.

Unknown mineral

Check my gem hunting videos from around Glen Innes here . I also have playlists on Glen Innes, the Blue Mountains and New Zealand.

https://johnsbluemountainsblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/links-to-all-blog-entries-and-relevant.html All Blue Mountains blogs and videos

https://johnsnewenglandminerals.blogspot.com/2013/12/list-of-all-blog-entries-to-date.html

All New England and other Geology blogs and videos

The mineral we all want to find: 16.8 carat blue sapphire