Gemstone Posts

I’m taking a gemstone hunting trip on April 25 to Graves Mountain, Georgia!! What? I’m not going to my normal spot at Gold n’ Gems Grubbin’? That right! I’m headed about 2 hours east of Atlanta to Lincoln County, Georgia to one of the premier crystal hunting spots in the entire United States, Graves Mountain!

What is Graves Mountain?

What exactly is Graves Mountain? According to the Georgia Mineral Society, Tiffany’s originally mined Graves Mountain for rutile used to polish diamonds. It was sold a few times and mining finally ceased at the site in the mid-80’s. Now the mountain is open by reservation and a couple of times per year for an open mining days. The next open mining days event is April 24-26.

What can I expect (hope?) to find at Graves Mountain? How about some of the following?

Minerals and crystals:

Graves Mountain has lots of Rutile (titanium dioxide. Rutilated quartz is one of my favorite finds and looks like gold threads inside the quartz. Rutile is also the mineral that makes the star in star sapphire. Below is a picture of rutilated quartz and a star sapphire. I don’t expect to find a star sapphire. Sapphires aren’t usually found at Graves Mountain, but it would be cool!

One of the coolest stones I could find at Graves Mountain is the iridescent hematite. If you remember from The Gemstone Chronicles Book Three: The Emerald, the heroes of the story arm themselves with hematite as it is supposed to make a warrior invincible in battle. I’ve found hematite at Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ before, but it was the dark grey version. Iridescent hematite is completely different in appearance and it’s beautiful!

Lazulite is another mineral that is sometimes found at Graves Mountain. A cool blue color, it reminds me of the lapis lazuli used by Alatariel in The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian to test the intentions of the humans before they enter the Northern Forest.

Besides the rutile and hematite, other minerals to find at the site include pyrophillite, pyrite, quartz, blue quartz, and many others. I plan on bringing home a ton of crystals!! The last pictures are of pyrophyllite and pyrite.

I will, of course, post pictures of my finds after the dig. Hopefully, it will be a good haul and make me want to go back in October, when they open the mountain again for a public dig.

Are there any good mineral prospecting sites where you live? I would love to know about them! Who knows? I might have to take a road trip!

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If you want to connect with me, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, or email me at biil@williamlstuart.com. I look forward to meeting each of you!

Gemstone hunting! One of my absolute favorite pastimes and one that led to the writing of The Gemstone Chronicles. I have talked about it in previous posts and even posted some pictures from the trips. Today, though, I want to walk you through the steps I go through when I pursue this hobby of mine! Yes, my gemstone hunting secrets revealed!

The location:

All of the pictures were taken by me on Sunday, March 15 at my favorite spot, Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ in Cleveland, GA. If you have read any of my previous posts on this topic, you already know some of this, but let me summarize for new readers. Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ is part of a commercial gold mine in the North Georgia Mountains. The property was part of the Loud Mine and continues to produce gold today.

For gold prospectors and gem enthusiasts, it is a great place to go for a fun (and sometimes profitable) visit. The site offers buckets and a covered sluice for sifting through the dirt to uncover treasures. They also offer mining at the creek – which is my favorite part. Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’ puts dirt dug from the mine pit next to the creek that runs through the property. Diggers can then fill buckets with dirt from the pile, take it to the creek, and sift through it. Whatever you find, you get to take home!

The dirt pile:

When we arrived (we being my brother John, his daughter Simone, and me) on Sunday morning, we had a fresh pile of dirt to dig through. However, it was wet and heavy dirt from recent rains, and it made for some heavy buckets!

Our process is to fill 5 gallon buckets with dirt from the pile and lug the buckets down to the creek. Trust me when I say that after 4 hours of toting buckets of dirt, you will be pretty tired! Here are my 4 buckets ready to be screened.

Work smarter, not harder:

I like to stack my screening boxes on top of one of the buckets and fill from another bucket. Why? Because I can let the dirt sift through the screens and sift out larger rocks. This way, by the time I get to the last bucket, I have some sifted dirt I can put into my sluice box. More on that in a minute. First, I wanted to show how the boxes look when full of dirt and placed in the creek to begin the washing process.

I try to let the creek do most of the work in the process. I tilt the boxes up on each other to get good water flow through the dirt. Most of the dirt simply washes away and leaves a box full of rocks. In the box below, I found a pretty sizable ruby. It’s always a bonus to find something so easily!

As I mentioned above, I like to work through all the buckets and then dump the sifted dirt into my sluice box. It isn’t necessary to sift it first, but with the sluice box, it makes it easier to run dirt through. Below is a picture of the sluice box in the creek. If there is any gold in the dirt, it will either catch on the black mat or get caught in the green carpet.

Once the dirt is run through the sluice, I rinse the carpet off in a bucket and then dump the contents of the bucket into my gold pan. I didn’t find any gold on this day, but I have found a few flakes before. It’s a bonus when you find the gold!

Gemstone Hunting Secrets – The results:

So, what did I find during my first gemstone hunting trip of the year? I found a few nice rocks, but the take wasn’t as good as some trips. Nevertheless, any day of gemstone hunting is a great day! Here are the results. The first picture is some of the gemstones I found.

From the upper left moving clockwise, we have rubies, garnets, quartz, citrine, and aventurine. Remember the ruby in the picture above, well, here is another view. The scale is set for grams, so doing the conversion, the stone is about 35 carats. Unfortunately, I don’t think this one would be a candidate for faceting, so it isn’t worth much. I still like it, though.

There you have the process we use to hunt for gemstones. I did find a smaller ruby (about 20 carats) that I plan on sending to my gem cutter to see if it is a good stone. When a stone is cut, you lose about 75% in the cutting process, but, if the stone is a good one, I could end up with a 5 carat ruby. Not bad for $15 visit!

What do you think about our gemstone hunting secrets and the process? It really isn’t secret, but it is tons of fun! Any suggestions on making it more efficient? If you hunt gemstones, what do you do and where do you go? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.  I can also be reached by email at bill@williamlstuart.com. I look forward to meeting you!

Regular readers of my blog (or my books) know that I’m a big fan of gemstones. I love faceted gemstones, cabochons, and tumbled stones. My books, The Gemstone Chronicles series, use the magical and mystical properties of gemstones as the basis of the magic the characters discover. I frequently go gemstone hunting at my favorite spot in the North Georgia Mountains, Gold n’ Gem Grubbin’, in Cleveland, GA. My two rock tumblers run almost all of the time, smoothing out the rough edges and polishing the stones I’ve found to a brilliant luster. Occasionally, though, I find a special stone that can be cut and faceted. Shown below is the first stone I ever had cut (an emerald)!

Emerald:

A 2.25 carat stone, it appraised nicely, and is still loose. Lana hasn’t decided on a setting yet. The stone is gorgeous, and since it was my first find, it is extra special!

Peridot:

My brother John found the peridot shown in the photo below. I had it cut for Lana. It weighed in at about 2.5 carats and I had it set in a sterling silver ring for her birthday. Beautiful!!

Ruby:

Now, I have two new additions to the faceted gemstones family! I was hunting and found this rough ruby and sent it over to my faceting friend and he worked his magic. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the rough.

After cutting and polishing, here is the final faceted stone. Not huge by any means, but still weighing in at 1.3 carats, it is a great little stone!

Note the description in the picture says sapphire, which is true. Recall that red sapphires are rubies! Gene cut the stone in a Cushion Cut, and it turned out beautifully!

Quartz:

I also sent over a piece of clear quartz that was stunning as a rough piece. Gene cut me two round brilliant cut stones about 1.25 carats each. I wanted to see how the quartz would turn out in a traditional diamond cut. I think they turned out great! What do you think?

What do you think about my faceted gemstones! I have some garnets that might facet well, but I have to get them cleaned up and see what they look like. A nice sapphire (blue not red) or a piece of aquamarine to have cut might be nice, but no such luck yet. I guess I just have to keep on looking!

Which of my faceted gemstones is your favorite? What setting would you use for the emerald or the ruby? Do you think the quartz brilliant cuts look like diamonds? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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Everyone who reads this blog or who has read The Gemstone Chronicles knows that I, like the character of Beebop from the books, love to hunt gemstones. Rubies and diamonds and sapphires, oh my! I try to go about once per month and see what I can find. A few weeks ago, I went and had a great day finding rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and a great piece of clear quartz. I went with my brother John, and we made a significant dent in the dirt pile! Here is what it looked like when we arrived.

The Dirt Piles:

And this is what it looked like when we left. Like I said, a significant dent. Look at the sign in the background. Gives a great idea of how much dirt we moved!

The rubies:

But, I don’t want to talk about the dirt pile or what we found overall. What I wanted to show you today is what I did with some of the stones I found. Below are a couple of pictures of ruby rough that I sent to my gem cutting friend (whom John and I refer to as “He Who Cuts Stones”).

This is the small piece of ruby rough that I sent. I didn’t weigh it before I sent it for cutting, but He Who Cuts Stones made a nice little faceted ruby (picture later).

This is the second piece I sent for faceting evaluation. I didn’t think it would yield anything that was gem quality, and, sadly, I was right. Despite that, I think it might make a great cabochon, though!

As promised above, here is the picture of the faceted stone made from the small ruby rough. I think it is a beautiful little ruby!

Note that the description in the picture says this is a sapphire. Rubies and sapphires are both corundum. Ruby is the red variety of corundum. Sapphires make up all the other colors. Similar to an emerald cut, the cushion but is great. It’s gorgeous ruby and, at 1.3 carats, is a very nice stone. Although it’s not as big as the Ruby from Book Four: The Ruby, it’s still beautiful!

The quartz:

I also sent an extremely clear piece of quartz I found to Gene. I asked him to cut a couple of brilliant cut pieces between one and one and a half carats, but I wasn’t sure what how they would turn out. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! This is the piece of quartz after the pieces were cut.

I know it isn’t the best picture. The stone was about twice that large before it was cut. Because it is still a good-sized piece of quartz, I probably could get a few more cut pieces from it. What I did get, though, was beautiful!

The picture doesn’t do the stones justice, but they will make a great pair of earrings for the lovely and adorable Lana! They are round brilliant cuts and, as the picture shows, 1.25 carats each. They look like diamonds!

Results like this make gemstone hunting worthwhile for me. Of course, I want to learn how to cut facets, but that is a topic for another post.

What is your favorite hobby? What do y’all think about the stones? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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I finally got back in the creek and went gemstone hunting today! I recently visited the Hogg Mountain Mine in LaGrange, GA and had a great time, but I truly enjoy putting my camp chair in the creek, and sifting through trays of dirt!

For those who don’t know, our favorite gem hunting spot is in Cleveland, GA, at Gold ‘n Gems Grubbin’. Besides being a fun place to hunt for gemstones at the creek, this was also the place that led me to write The Gemstone Chronicles.

What I found:

Today, though, it was just brother John and me and we had a great time and had a pretty good haul of gemstones.

I know you can’t see the details in the picture above, so I will tell you that there are citrine, quartz crystal, hematite, garnets, emeralds, topaz, a couple of sapphires, one ruby, and one really purple amethyst! I have some better pictures of some of the stones.

Citrines from the trip! I wish I could have gotten a closer picture to show the points on the stones, but they were very well defined.

In this picture, there are a few garnets (note the deep red on the tip of one of the garnets), a couple of topaz, and a small emerald.

I think this is one of the best finds of the day! It is a clear quartz crystal with a few surface flaws, but the interior looks pretty clean. I might have to take this one to my friend who cuts facets for me and let him work his magic. Maybe Lana gets a new pair of earrings!! Below is another picture of the same crystal.

Lastly, I have a picture of a deep purple amethyst. This was the only deep colored amethyst I found. I found another one, but it was very pale. It had a blush of amethyst instead of the deep purple that I like. I didn’t include a photo of that stone.

So that’s it. The results of four hours of sifting through tray after tray of dirt in the creek. Pretty good day to be back in the creek!!

Have you done any collecting recently? Antiques, stamps, coins, or any other collectible (like maybe the four books of The Gemstone Chronicles)? If you have, please leave me a comment and let me know what treasure you found! I’d like to see it!

A couple of weeks ago, my brother John and I ventured over to LaGrange, Georgia to check out the Hogg Mountain Mine and hunt for aquamarines. Despite the fact that we didn’t find any of the blue-green gemstones, we had a great time, met some interesting people, and are planning a return trip when it is a bit cooler!

This isn’t hard rock mining, but we were certainly working in the pit! This first picture is the entrance to the mine pit.

We moved a little deeper into the mine and made it to the main pit. As you can see from the bright blue skies, it was a sunny day, and it got hot later in the afternoon!

I know you are probably wondering what the picture above is. Well, it’s part of the wall of the main pit. The white is almost like talc – very soft and easy to dig in. The dark splotches are tourmaline. Tourmaline is a very brittle stone and breaks away easily. The idea is to dig into the wall and try to find aquamarine that may be hidden in the wall. Of course, there are other stones to dig around and to find. Lots of clear quartz crystals (with very sharp edges, so wear gloves!), and some beautiful rose quartz.

The picture below is another view of the wall. Note the rusty-red streak going down the wall. Lots of iron in the soil, so you do get rust!

You’ve seen the mine and the wall we dug in, so what did we find?

This is a small sampling of what I brought home. There are clear and rose quartz crystals, a chunk of darker quartz at the bottom right of the picture, three pieces of black tourmaline, and my purchased aquamarine on the left. Not bad for a day’s work. I can see the rock tumbler will be busy!!

The tourmaline (shown above) is in the walls of the pit. Luckily, there was another section of the mine where it was simply on the ground for easy pickup.

What we went to try to find, though, was aquamarine. We dug for the entire day and didn’t find any. That’s the nature of the gem hunting game, though. You never know what you might find and you might not find anything. The owner of the mine, though, had some specimens available for purchase, so I bought myself a small aquamarine rough stone. I like it and will tumble it soon to see how it turns out!

I love the blue-green color and it’s my birthstone. If you remember from The Gemstone Chronicles Book One: The Carnelian, Beebop used his aquamarine to help defeat the kelpie, and the stone is one of the gemstones in the Elven Sword, so this stone has a lot of meaning for me!

I hope you will go out exploring the area in which you live and see what kind of gemstones you can find! if you do, drop me a note and let me know what you find. Who knows, I might have to make a trip to see if I can find something cool in your area, too!!