Mineral Mondays #6: Topaz

Topaz

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Topaz is a very hard silicate mineral that contains aluminum and fluorine. I wasn't drawn to topaz until I was able to dig it up. There is something to be said for getting your hands dirty and with topaz the rewards can be fantastic.

A few years ago, and more recently this past May, I went to dig for topaz at Topaz Mountain in Utah. It's located about 3 hours south west of Salt Lake City in the desert. The nearest city is Delta an hour away. It was once the site of a WWII Japanese Concentration Camp. The mountain is BLM land and a state designated collecting area for rock hounds and gem hunters. It is without a doubt one of my favorite collecting spots in the entire US. Here are some results from this year's trip.

Sherry Topaz

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Sun Bleached Topaz

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The mountain it's self is a giant rhyolite flow containing gas bubbles in which the topaz, red beryl and pseudobrookite formed. The rhyolite can be very hard to very soft depending on how long it has been exposed to the elements. A hammer, cold chisel, flat head screw driver, chopsticks & soft toothbrush are the tools you need to get the topaz out of the matrix.

The most famous area to collect at is called the "Amphitheater". It's just one part of the Thomas Mountain range that is loaded with valuable minerals. The 3 sides of the amphitheater all have different things going for them. Each side has topaz, but the right side and the center area have been heavily prospected. That doesn't mean you won't find anything as I'll show you in the video below. Both times I have gone my best specimens came from the center of the amphitheater. Having said that, my largest haul of crystals came from the left side of the amphitheater.

Here is a video driving into the amphitheater and finding topaz!

Some facts about topaz:

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• Topaz is a silicate mineral 
• Shape - Orthorhombic
• Composition - silicate, aluminum and fluorine
• Hardness - 8 (high, diamond is 10) 
• Refractive index (fire) - 1.61 - 1.638 (diamond is 2.417 - 2.419)
• November birthstone
• Colors - Sherry, yellow, reddish brown, clear and rare pink, blue
• Localities - All over the world, too many to list, but Colorado, Utah & Texas in the US.

So what can you find?

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Topaz

Sherry colored and clear, sun bleached crystals. Both are awesome gems and really shine. When light hits them you'd think it was a diamond, that's how much they sparkle without being cut! You will notice this as the ground is littered with tiny crystals that shine and sparkle with every step.

Red Beryl

This is the gemstone everyone is after. The king of the gemstones. A clean red beryl can fetch $10,000 a carat! Red beryl is so rare that for every 150,000 diamonds found 1 red beryl crystal is found. I'll do a post in a few weeks on red beryl so stay tuned for that.

Pseudobrookite

This is a very small, black, bladed crystal. It's only use is for the collector.

You can also find opal, garnets, amethyst and tiffany stone on the back side of Topaz Mountain. Next time I go up I plan on hunting some of those minerals for a day as well.

There are no services there so you need to bring food and water. You can camp all over the mountain and that's something I would recommend as the hour long drive in an out can get tedious. Both times I have been there families were camping everywhere so it's a normal activity out there.

I'll close with a few more photos of the mountain, the backside and some crystals. Enjoy.

The highway sign.

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Center of the mountain with gas pockets in the rhyolite.

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Crystal I dug 2 years ago.

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Beware of scorpions!

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Ore bin near Topaz Mountain. Probably from the beryllium mining.

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Looking down on the amphitheater. You can make out the cars center, lower left.

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Next Mineral Mondays #7: Turquoise

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