by Dion Stewart
Wow, what service!! Ray Borders our trip leader, and the private land owner teamed up and bulldozed the hillside to expose fresh silica specimens for our May trip into the Longview Dolomite Formation, which is about 400 million years old. We parked 26 cars, trucks and SUVs in the pasture right at the site, where you could find brightly colored red, yellow, green and even blue (as well as black and white) microcrystalline quartz in the form of chalcedony, jasper and chert.
The blocks showed textures that ranged from random mottling to contorted banding. Everyone on the trip, whether a youngster of age 10 or and old timer (age of 80+) filled their first bucket within an hour. Some individuals took home 40+ pound boulders — not sure how they are going to cut them — and many collected multiple buckets without finding a single duplicate rock
Ray ran a great trip, and Frank came down to the site from his house on the hill and we all enjoyed his reflections on the history of this remarkable place. We are indeed fortunate to be able to collect at this great site.
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