Gem Mining

One of the recent field trips the girls and I went on was digging for gems. It was cold, muddy, and a bit fun. We had our pals, the Cravey's, there as well, making it all the more fun.

There is an actual gem mine less than 30 minutes from here and I've always wanted to take Rebecca but never made it a point to go. The owners of this mine are retiring and selling the land. They are only open for school field trips so when another homeschool mom set up a trip out there, we jumped on it. There might not have been another opportunity to go.

I'll admit, I was not completely thrilled about going. If Darla wasn't going too, I probably would have backed out due to the cold weather. Darla, however, was loving every minute of it.

The girls and Andrew

Emily sitting a hole that someone else had previously dug up.

Rebecca has a garnet!

Emily watching Daniel dig under the roots of a large tree.

Below is a bag full of our findings. The girls really enjoyed the sluicing but the water was ice cold. We brought the rocks home to wash up in the warm water.

We found a bunch of amethyst, a garnet, those green rocks, lots of different types of granite, marble (a huge slab leftover from a counter piece!), and lots of mica.

Rebecca has an extensive rock collection with a jewelry box of mica. She was so excited that there was mica everywhere- just ready to be picked up!

Here is just a few rocks that we washed up. The rest will have to wait until spring when we can do it outside. It'll be more fun then, right?

This photo doesn't do this one justice. There is an amazing purple color inside this rock. It's the largest piece of amethyst that we found.

I forget the name of this one but I believe it's schist

Some of these pieces were so clear that they looked like chunks of glass.

Here is a huge chunk of mica. I love how you can see the layers in it.

These are amazonite feldspar.

I can't wait to polish them up in Rebecca's rock tumbler.

Quartzite a metamorphic rock.