RE: Mineral Mondays #13: Kunzite
Man, that is so cool! The second piece you show there has a real nice pink color. You are making me want to get more into this stuff, it looks like so much fun to dig for gem stones. And finding nice pieces like that I bet it can actually be profitable, just a quick internet search for Kunzite shows gems selling for hundreds of dollars! It just seems like there is a lot to learn in order to know what your doing. Lots of technical names and terms to remember. But I'm super interested. If we go to Panamint City I can show you a place where I was finding quartz crystals in the top inch of dirt near and old mine. None of them were huge but they were still pretty nice. I thought maybe next time I went there I'd take a shovel with me so I could dig deeper and maybe find some bigger ones.
And kunzite is less valuable than beryl and tourmaline! I started out farting around with gold. While there is still lots of gold out there, there's a lot more of other valuable gems and minerals as well. Quartz crystals are a good indicator of other valuable minerals. Anywhere quartz can grow big enough to form individual crystals is also an area that other minerals can grow and do the same.
I'll have to do a search of the Panamint area for minerals found there other than silver and gold. Usually copper travels with those two so that could also mean malachite or azurite. The key thing is knowing what to look for, veins, quartz outcroppings, pegmatites, etc.
A lot of the same techniques apply to gem collecting, the more material you move the better your chances. Forget the tiny stuff because it's too difficult to get rid of and/or use.
We should go collecting beryl and amazonite near Lone Pine some day. Involves some minor mountain/rock climbing, but so worth it when you find something. Haystack mountain if you of know it.
I have heard about Tourmaline being really valuable. I know a few of the prospectors in my GPAA chapter like to look for Tourmaline. The quartz crystals I was finding by Panamint city were around an inch long. One was double tipped, I thought that was pretty cool. I know that they were finding lots of azurite up there too. And I'd definitely be down for a gem hunting trip up to Lone Pine!