Tourmalinated Quartz
Here is one for the crystal lovers. These crystals have 'hairs' of black tourmaline inclusions in them.
Notice the tourmaline hairs sticking out from the host rock.
The specimens pictured came from the Cactus mine dumps. They are
located
just to the east of the old ghost town of Newhouse, NV. The dumps could
be seen from the ghost town. You can drive right up to them, but you
may want to use a high clearance vehicle, since it is dirt roads you
that will be on.
We just collected from the surface and did not do any digging into the
huge piles of material. There are several types of minerals that will
be found in these piles. Nice crystals of pyrite, chalcopyrite, quartz,
and tourmaline (Black radial sprays, but nothing big).
There is a lot of debris in the area, so you need to watch where you
step and what you grab.
When you find a nice shaped crystal of quartz, wipe it off and hold it
up to the light and see if it has any hairs growing in it. The hairs
are the tourmaline and the dark spots will be either pyrite or
hematite. Some of the crystals have a heavy coating of hematite on
them, but under the coating is a clear crystal. Although, the coating
gives the crystals an interesting look, so you may wish to leave it on.
If access is still available to the "Cactus Mine" (It looked like they
were planning to reopen it.) you can find some well defined quartz
crystals in the tailings, some of which have the "hairs" in them.
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© 2017 John & Shirley Bloomfield, for individual non commercial use only.