Specimens from the Green Ghost
After several hours of pick and shovel work on a rather unforgiving solid pegmatite, I finally began finding some bits of red-stained rock. Tim and Scott had alread discovered what we named the Tim and Scott Pocket (go figure) and they were busy excavating. I was rather discouraged since I had not found anything all day. Maybe this was finally it.
I didn't let my sons know that it looked like I had the indications of a pocket. Too often, it turned out to be a false alarm. They were already rubbing it in with their find. But the fragments increased to complete crystals, and soon I was removing single amazonite crystals and smoky quartz crystals. Although single, these were simply amazing. In the sun, the amazonite was a deep, rich green, not like the Christmas Pocket which was quite blue. These reminded me of wet emeralds in the soil. The smokies were near colorless and showed a fuzzy phantom in the center of each. These we call "ghosts" since the phantom blends in with the colorless surrounding quartz.
Then, I pulled out a single smoky with an attached amazonite. Hiding it it my hands, I turned to my two sons, "Guys, you aren't going to believe this." I had discovered the Green Ghost pocket!
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| Open cavity with amazonite and smoky quartz crystals. | Incredible amazonites and quartz in the Green Ghost pocket. |
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| A single amazonite with smoky. Note the transparancy of the smoky quartz. | Another nice Green Ghost combo. |
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| The third of five combo pieces. | We use water when removing specimens to loosen the clay and keep from damaging the pieces. |
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| A beautiful "castle" combination piece. | This is Tim and Scott Pocket. Maybe I can post photos later. This one is still being cleaned. |
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| Scott's Pocket. To be seen in the future. | |
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Although the Green Ghost Pocket was exciting to dig, it produced only five good combination specimens.