John's New England Minerals and General Geology Blog: facet

Saturday, 17 August 2013

THE BIG SAPPHIRE YARROW CREEK NSW AUSTRALIA

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 this Blog (2024).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.

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

https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/1325599670344725659?pli=1

Limestone Caves of NSW

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1147003616874115974/2430103125095714141

Song Studies. Bible studies based on hymns and songs

https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/1515863000684737715

Shoalhaven District Geology.

The second largest stone - 11 carats

Friday, 19 July 2013

KINGSGATE QUARTZ

The Kingsgate mines (near Glen Innes, NSW) have been a major source of bismuth and molybdenum since the 1870’s and recent exploration has revealed that economic amounts of these resources still exist.

The mines and their dumps have produced an extraordinary array of minerals, notable amongst these is quartz, and fine specimens of quartz from Kingsgate are to be found in collections all over the world. The clarity of many of these crystals led to the dumps being worked over during World War 11 for high quality crystals, which were needed for radio equipment at the time.

Much facettable quartz has been found in the dumps right up to the present and would be still if access were permitted.

Because of mining exploration in recent years, the public has been refused access to the area except under strict supervision on a few rare occasions such as during Minerama, the annual Glen Innes gem and mineral show.

As a result of Kingsgate's long mining history, there are numerous reports available about the area, all of which make reference to the presence of quartz crystals. Several of my reports are found in this Blog (2024)

Here is a list of easily accessible downloadable references:

Previous references in my Blog:

June 4 2013 DOWNLOADING PDF DOCUMENTS FROM "DIGS",

June 7 2013 The Molybdenum Industry in NSW (Mineral Resources 24, 1916, by EC Andrews) and Molybdenum in NSW (Mineral Resources 43, 1978, by CR Weber, IBL Paterson and DJ Townsend).

July 4 2013 MINERAMA BOOK DOWNLOADS FROM ALF Molybdenite

July 5 2013 MORE USEFUL BOOK DOWNLOADS FROM ALF Kingsgate Mines.