Little Gems

nowhereman

Guest
As our work involves the use of precious and semi precious stones, we quite often make a point of wildcamping in places where it may be possible to find the odd gem in its natural enviroment.
This angle often makes for an exiting day, walking and exploring with the possibility of a find.

Just thought I'd share a couple of places for anyone who has an interest in this sort of thing:)

Amethyst, clear and smokey quartz. Langley Ford (Cheviot Hills near Wooler).
Park as far along the single lane road as you can get before the no vehicles sign. Follow the stream up into the hills. If you are lucky you may find Amethyst and other Quartz in the stream, especially if the sun is out.
Follow the stream further up until on the left you will find that the hillside is made of volcanic ash that has part turned into a yellowish clay. After heavy rain is the best time to look into the clay for pieces of Amethyst.

Garnet, Tongue North Scotland, before the bridge leading to the youth hostel, turn left and park up at the end of the road. Walk to the cliff tops and grassy areas of the coast. You will find areas of glinting rockface in the grass. This is a Mica rich rock called Schist. Look closlely and you will find nuggets of Garnet embedded in the rock.

Tis rare to find anything of jewellery grade, but the whole experience of trying to make a find is just as enjoyable as making a find.

Have a few more places to share but post is getting a bit long.


Does anyone else know of any other good places for this sort of thing?.:)
 
nowhereman said:
Amethyst, clear and smokey quartz. Langley Ford (Cheviot Hills near Wooler).
Park as far along the single lane road as you can get before the no vehicles sign. Follow the stream up into the hills. If you are lucky you may find Amethyst and other Quartz in the stream, especially if the sun is out.
Follow the stream further up until on the left you will find that the hillside is made of volcanic ash that has part turned into a yellowish clay. After heavy rain is the best time to look into the clay for pieces of Amethyst.

Garnet, Tongue North Scotland, before the bridge leading to the youth hostel, turn left and park up at the end of the road. Walk to the cliff tops and grassy areas of the coast. You will find areas of glinting rockface in the grass. This is a Mica rich rock called Schist. Look closlely and you will find nuggets of Garnet embedded in the rock.

Tis rare to find anything of jewellery grade, but the whole experience of trying to make a find is just as enjoyable as making a find.

Have a few more places to share but post is getting a bit long.


Does anyone else know of any other good places for this sort of thing?.:)
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Have yo tried Prestons of bolton:):) Just google them:):)
 
Originally Posted by nowhereman
Tis rare to find anything of jewellery grade, but the whole experience of trying to make a find is just as enjoyable as making a find.
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crap gems then :eek:...reminds me of ratners :rolleyes:

regards :D
aj

[FONT=&quot]prefer the fossil trail personally... i can spot 1 from 50 yards :eek:


it use to be 100yds but my eyes are going :eek:[/FONT]
 
ajs said:
[
[FONT=&quot]prefer the fossil trail personally[/FONT]... i can spot 1 from 50 yards :eek:
it use to be 100yds but my eyes are going :eek:[/FONT]
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Sorry to break this to you mate !!!..look in the mirror.You might find a fossil 3 ft away :eek:

Channa
 
maingate said:
I pass an outcrop of coal when out walking.

Now there`s a rare mineral.:rolleyes:
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At surface level perhaps, Still plenty of black gold in Yorks,

The trouble is the lads capable of extracting it have been denied a living by politics, It seems we have a penchant for coal mined abroad!!..

Disgraceful !!

What a fooking surprise :eek: most miners dont have the desire to work in fookin call centres that have sprung up in the area :mad::mad::mad:

A very sad situation

Channa
 
Dont have the time to get out looking for minerals these days, too busy cutting and selling them. But a guy who supplies me was saying that the long closed Odin mine in Castleton Derbyshire is eroding and a walk on the hill above it after rain can result in some fine pieces of flourite (blue john) being found.
 
urbtaf said:
Dont have the time to get out looking for minerals these days, too busy cutting and selling them. But a guy who supplies me was saying that the long closed Odin mine in Castleton Derbyshire is eroding and a walk on the hill above it after rain can result in some fine pieces of flourite (blue john) being found.
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I know it well :rolleyes: continue beyond the winnats turn off and just before the bus turnaround.

A wilding spot well documented here as it happens.

Blue John aside, some good walks up to Mam Tor, For the more adventurous and fit....down towards Edale and Jacobs ladder, Kinder Scout A favourite mountain biking area of mine, but that long since I did it ....good chance of a coronary!!!!:eek:

Channa
 
channa said:
I know it well :rolleyes: continue beyond the winnats turn off and just before the bus turnaround.

A wilding spot well documented here as it happens.

Blue John aside, some good walks up to Mam Tor, For the more adventurous and fit....down towards Edale and Jacobs ladder, Kinder Scout A favourite mountain biking area of mine, but that long since I did it ....good chance of a coronary!!!!:eek:

Channa
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I did a tour of one of those mines a couple of years ago, was fascinating to find out that 300ft underground was a former seabed complete with ammonites.
Being a bit dodgy with heights I was not so fascinated to find out that 300ft down has the same effect on me as 300ft up:eek::)
oops was meant to quote Urbtaf
 
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nowhereman said:
I did a tour of one of those mines a couple of years ago, was fascinating to find out that 300ft underground was a former seabed complete with ammonites.
Being a bit dodgy with heights I was not so fascinated to find out that 300ft down has the same effect on me as 300ft up:eek::)
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you should have [FONT=&quot]gone[/FONT] on down there... furtherer and furtherer...:):rolleyes:
you would have seen china :eek:

regards :p
aj
 
There were plenty of fossilised sea creatures nearly 2,000 feet down at Wearmouth Colliery where I worked. I wish I had got a few now but nobody bothered.

We once had a machine cutting coal and it suddenly bucked like a bronco and every stel box on the drum that held the Tungsten picks were sheared off. Somebody said later that it had been a fossilised tree that had somehow kept its shape and turned into something harder than concrete.
 
maingate said:
There were plenty of fossilised sea creatures nearly 2,000 feet down at Wearmouth Colliery where I worked. I wish I had got a few now but nobody bothered.

We once had a machine cutting coal and it suddenly bucked like a bronco and every stel box on the drum that held the Tungsten picks were sheared off. Somebody said later that it had been a fossilised tree that had somehow kept its shape and turned into something harder than concrete.
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Well thank you ancient tree, My dad worked at Carcroft Workshops in Doncaster and repaired BJD's coal cutters, but it put bread on the table !!!

In terms of Geology, apparently in the days of Pangea, an ancient sea started in Hickleton near Doncaster and finished in Germany according to Mrs Brookes my geology teacher, plenty of fossils to be found.

Fascinating stuff

Channa
 
maingate said:
There were plenty of fossilised sea creatures nearly 2,000 feet down at Wearmouth Colliery where I worked. I wish I had got a few now but nobody bothered.

We once had a machine cutting coal and it suddenly bucked like a bronco and every stel box on the drum that held the Tungsten picks were sheared off. Somebody said later that it had been a fossilised tree that had somehow kept its shape and turned into something harder than concrete.
Click to expand...

During a vac job I sold motor components from a van (AA COMPONENTS of Stirling). I visited the local opencast sites regularly as I could shift any grease guns I could get my hands on easily there, as they were always dropping and loosing them.

The OC site at Lanchester turned up a fosilised tree Lepidodendron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. I was studying Geology and I managed to get a piece. The rest of it went to Durham University Geology Department. There is a good example if a fossil tree just outside of the church in Stanhope.

I have just passed on my collection of rocks and fossils to my grandson. One of the down sides of going full time I suppose. I will now just have to look and I wont get wrong for bringing bits of rock into the motorhome anymore.
 
channa said:
Well thank you ancient tree, My dad worked at Carcroft Workshops in Doncaster and repaired BJD's coal cutters, but it put bread on the table !!!

In terms of Geology, apparently in the days of Pangea, an ancient sea started in Hickleton near Doncaster and finished in Germany according to Mrs Brookes my geology teacher, plenty of fossils to be found.

Fascinating stuff

Channa
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AH British Jeffrey Diamond Channa, another British company thats gone for good.

Ask your Dad about the haulage ends on the Shearers. The BJD`s had a couple of hydraulic valves and virtually nothing else. The identical looking Anderson Boyes m/c`s were a maze of pipework and cylinders and a nightmare to work on underground as you often only had a few inches of space above them on the face.

I was trained up by a expert on them. The downside was being called out when one went down. Especially if I was in the Working Mens Club at the time.
 
maingate said:
AH British Jeffrey Diamond Channa, another British company thats gone for good.

Ask your Dad about the haulage ends on the Shearers. The BJD`s had a couple of hydraulic valves and virtually nothing else. The identical looking Anderson Boyes m/c`s were a maze of pipework and cylinders and a nightmare to work on underground as you often only had a few inches of space above them on the face.

I was trained up by a expert on them. The downside was being called out when one went down. Especially if I was in the Working Mens Club at the time.
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I would have staked all my worldy chattels and £2.50 you would know straight away what I was on about re BJD's.:cool:

I remember BJD's for the weirdest of reasons, as a schoolboy I did Engineering drawing at o and a level and I remember my dad chucking a drawing on the kitchen table, His way of providing parental guidance !!!

I put my fiesta away and remember gazing at it for hours, gleaning anything that would help my own cause.

Hopefully I will see him later this week and I will ask the question.

What I can share is my dad telling me tales of them cranking up the cutters in the workshops after refurb and him commenting on the noise and the factory floor vibrating. And in his words, God knows what happens when their down the pit !

After the 84 fiasco , Carcroft closed and Shafton Barnsley, Cuckney in Derbys and Allerton Bywater Castleford were the options on the table.

He decided to go with Allerton Bywater, and that lasted perhaps three years.

He finished his working career working in Sainsburys supermarket stacking shelves etc, He would never entertain the idea of the benefit system.:D

In my mind, thats the bit history doesnt record, skilled people that ended up on the scrap heap!!......nothing wrong with shelf stacking in Sainsburys's but not the best way of employing skilled people.

Channa
 
nowhereman said:
I did a tour of one of those mines a couple of years ago, was fascinating to find out that 300ft underground was a former seabed complete with ammonites.
Being a bit dodgy with heights I was not so fascinated to find out that 300ft down has the same effect on me as 300ft up:eek::)
oops was meant to quote Urbtaf
Click to expand...

Was down one of the Matlock mines last June, the guy who owns it wanted to show me the gold that he had found in the deepest shaft (never noticed when they were mining flourite as they used candles to see and the soot blacked out the gold)
What he didnt tell me was that the last 200 yards was a 2 1/2 foot round tunnel with no room to turn round at the end. I started to lose it on the way out but the secret is to close your eyes and pretend your somewhere else while slow breathing.
 
2 1/2 foot was a luxury when I were a lad. You could ride a horse and cart through 2 1/2 foot.:D

You did very well going there if you are not used to it. I was claustrophobic at times and its not a nice feeling.
 
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