On our outing to Penfield Quarry on Saturday we found some pieces of fluorite. A few of the people there said it would glow under a black light. Cool! I used to have black lights when I was a kid, along with the various fuzzy black light posters. I might even have a black light bulb still packed away somewhere, but if I do, I don’t know where it would be.
So I headed out yesterday to buy a black light bulb. I stopped in a Home Depot. They had a 24″ black light bulb, and an 18 inch black light bulb. They were not cheap either. I think the 18 inch bulb was like $12 maybe. Not sure. I looked for a portable fixture that could be plugged into a wall, but didn’t find one, and I didn’t have a lot of time. I looked around some more, and found a 75 watt incadescent black light bulb. And it was only $4. So I bought it and headed out.
When I got home last night, I screwed it into a lamp, and turned it on. I held the fluorite and other rocks under the dim light, and they didn’t seem to noticibly glow at all. We turned off the lights, and still nothing. It was still somewhat light, so we waited till after dark. Again, no glow. Hmmmm…
We thought the light might be too dim, or maybe the incadescent light has the frequency or something.
Today at lunch, I stopped at Lowes. I found the 24 and 18 inch black light bulbs. The 18 bulb was only $9 here. I went in search of a fixture and found them. I found some fluorescent fixtures the plug into the wall. I found one that would fit the 18 inch bulb for $17. But then my buddy whow as with me found a fixture that already came with a black light bulb! We could find the price. But when I took it to the check out, it was only $20. Nice! I bought it.
When I go back to work I searched for information about black lights and rocks. I was surprised to learn there are different black lights. Long wave (UV-A), medium wave (UV-B), and short wave (UV-C). It seems that the black light I bought is likely to be a long wave. And that what I need to make the rocks glow is a short wave black light. A mid wave black light is what they use on CSI to make bodily fluids glow. Hmmm. I did a search of short wave black lights and found they are expensive. Ouch! I will try the light I bought, and if it doesn’t do much, maybe I will return it. Or maybe I will keep it. Maybe long wave black light will work on different rocks. I will have to do more research.
I have known about the Penfield Quarry for a long time, and have always wanted to visit it. Even before I got into rockhounding. Ellison Park, a local park that I have hiked many times, borders on the quarry, and I always wanted to go explore it. But I haven’t wanted to trespass on private property.
My wife and I joined a local rock club, and they had a field trip to the Penfield Quarry today. I had loaded most of the stuff in the car last night. We had to be at the quarry at 6:45am. I set my alarm for 5:15, and was awake before it went off. I get up, and vegged for a while and then got dressed, and finished loading the car. I brought all the tools I thought I might need. Basically the same kind of stuff I took to dig for Herkimer Diamonds. Sledges, bullpoint chisel, crack hammers, screens, pick axe, wedges, etc. I also packed our new hard hats. And we both wore our new steel toed boots.
We arrived at the quarry a little after 6:30 and there were a bunch of people already there. We hung out by our car, not sure what to do. Eventually we saw people heading inside the building, so we followed them. We signed a release form. Then it was time to head down into the quarry. We headed back to our car, and followed the line of cars to the area with filled with boulders.
We donned our hardhats, and headed to look at the boulders. We weren’t sure what to do, so we watched other people. I knew we were after fluorite, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I had seen pictures in my books, but that didn’t help. I asked a couple guys, and they said the fluorite was in vugs. Okay. So we got our tools, and started busting rock. I was splitting open cracks. We pretty much only found dolomite, these little white crystals. We moved to a different area, and were busting on some rocks. I found a big rock that was already cracked. I worked at splitting it open more to see what was inside. More dolomite and calcite. I managed to tear some skin off of one of my fingers, and came close to breaking one of my legs when the rock I was standing on moved. Oh the fun of it!
Someone found something and everyone got excited. I went down to look at it was a tiny crystal that sort of looked like a short brown pine needle. Apparently it is rare.
We also found some selenite which was kind of cool looking. I found a big yellowish cystal on top of some dolomite as well as some tiny clear crystals. I showed them to a couple other guys who looked like they knew what they were doing. these turned out to be calcite. It looked different than the calcite we found at the herkimer mines. Then we found a tiny brown crystal mixed in with dolomite. I showed it to one of the geology students, and he told me what it was. I thought it started with “sph” and ended with “ite”. Not sure. I looked in my books when I got home. Maybe he said it was a Sphalerite. We found another one as well.
Then I found a piece covered with dolomite, and a tiny speck of purple. It almost looked like an amethyst. I showed it to the geology student and he said it was fluorite and got all excited at this tiny bit. I commented that I thought that it would be larger. I showed him where I thought I got it, and he asked if he could work the rock. I told him go ahead. He worked it for a bit, then moved on.
We kept working at vugs and breaking rocks. A little while later, I found part of a crystal with some blue in it. This was larger. I showed it to another guy and he said it was fluorite. I went back and found there was more under where I found the piece. I set about with the crack hammer and bullpoint chisel to break away the rock around the fluorite. It was tough. I didn’t want to destroy the flourite. I worked my way in towards the fluorite. The big piece of fluorite was already broken into smaller pieces, and I started pulling out the pieces. We collected a handfull of fluorite pieces. We showed them to the college student. He and his friends ooohed and ahhed over the pieces. I showed them where I got it. There was still a little bit left showing. I let them have the rock. He and he friends went to work trying to break it apart.
My wife and I were hungry and tired, so we headed home. We will probably try to come back next time they let people in. It was kind of fun.
On our recent trip digging for Herkimer Diamonds, I also picked up and kept chunks of calcite. I didn’t know what it was until someone told me. I am still learning all this stuff. But it looked interesting, and some of it was hard to tell from the diamonds (quartz) while it was dirty/muddy anyway. It was just easier to throw it in the bag.
But now that we are home, I have been cleaning up all the stuff we found. I am actually surprised at how many small chunks of calcite that we collected. Most are small, but a few pieces are larger with small pieces of rock attached.
I was reading stuff on the web and I found some stuff talking about the calcite. From what I understand, the calcite is one of the last things to form, and can form around the quartz crystals. So some of my small hunks of calcite might have Herkimer diamonds inside them. I know for sure a couple pieces do since the crystal is partially exposed.
But something else I learned was that the calcite can be disolved by soaking it in white vinegar.
So I took a few of the chunks of calcite with exposed quartz crystals, and set them in a bowl with distilled white vinegar. Right away, tiny bubbles started coming off the calcite. I kept checking back and I could see the quartz crystals becoming more and more exposed as the calcite was slowly eaten away. I placed some more pieces of calcite in the vinegar that may or may not have Herkimer diamonds in them. When I got up the this morning, the chunks were smaller. The bubbling action seemed to have stopped, so I replaced the used vinegar with some fresh vinegar.
When we were down in North Carolina going after emeralds, and other gemstones, the most productive method was creeking. That was simply using a screen box and a small shovel to dig from the bottom of the creek, dump it into the screen, sluice it in the creek water and examine the rocks that were left.
When I got home, I decided to build a screen box. I have a small stream running through my property and was wondering what kind of rocks were in there. I searched the web for screen boxes, sluicing boxes and anything else I could find, and couldn’t find any plans or directions how to make one. I wish I had gotten close of pictures of the ones we used in Hiddenite, NC. Anyway, I have to wing it and design my own.
Parts lists:
8′ x 3.5″ x 1″ pine board (without any major knots and that isn’t too warped)
8 x 3″ exterior screws (or 16 screws to make a second screen box)
1 roll of 1/4″ screen/hardware cloth.
Staple gun/staples.
Using a miter saw, cut the board into 8 pieces of even length (about 12″ minus waste from cutting blade).
Drill two holes 1/2 inch from one end of each board, using a drill bit about the thickness of the screws you are using (I used an 11/64 drill bit). Start with two boards, lining up the side of one board with the edge of another board, then using my a with a phillips head bit mounted, drive a screw in. Then line up the next board, and drive a single screw in. Continue until all four boards were attached in a square shape. Make sure the frame is square, then procede to drive in the remaining four screws.
Once the frame is solid, lay the screen over the frame. Using some wire cutters, carefully cut a square that covers the inside opening of the frame. You want the screen to cover as much of the frame as possible without overlapping the outside edge of the frame. Cut the screen right along the crosswire so you don’t get little points sticking out. Once the screen square is cut, clean up any sharp points.
Position the screen on the frame. Then using the staplegun, staple the screen to the frame spacing the staples about every one to two inches along the edge of the screen. You may need to tap the staples down using a hammer.
Now you have a screen box! With an 8 foot board and a roll of screen, you can make a couple screen boxes.
Many of the Herkimer “diamonds” I dug from the ground were clear, but many were a sort orange/yellow color. I was told this was actually rust. A couple people told me that the rust could be removed by soaking the crystals in something called Iron Out. The one guy said he left his diamonds soaking in Iron Out overnight, and they were white the next morning.
So when we go home, I went to the grocery store and also to Target to look for Iron Out. But I didn’t see any. I found CLR (Calcium-Lime-Rust remover) and bought some of that. First, I cleaned the diamonds in water with dish soap and Oxyclean. Then I soaked a few of the diamonds in a mixture of water and CLR. After while we scrubbed on the diamonds, and some of the rust came off. But this was nowhere as easy as what I had been told about the Iron Out.
I did some research. I went online and checked out the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for both Iron Out and CLR to see if they were the same or different. I found they were not even close to the same thing. I managed to find some Super Iron Out at Lowes Home Improvement. I bought a 5 lb jug of the stuff for a little about $11. I found it was a powder, and not a liquid. The directions called for 1/3 or 1/4 of a cup into a gallon of water. I wasn’t using near that much water. So I guestimated and pour just a little bit in and put a few diamonds in. They bubbled for few seconds then settled down. I checked periodically and even in a short time I could see the rust color fading or disappearing altogether! Wow, it worked fast! I left the diamonds in the Iron Out overnight and most of them were clear by morning. A few still have rust stains, so after taking the finished crystals out, I replaced the water and added more Iron Out.