by Dion Stewart
November 26th was a beautiful day for a field trip, as we had the only six hours of blue sky and warm temperatures sandwiched between two long, rainy, and overcast days. Thirty-some people participated with about half coming from CCGMS and half coming from Georgia Mineral Society, as our guests. This trip always produces an unlimited amount of excel-lent cabbing material. The exposures are always “perfect” because Frank, the property owner, and Ray Borders, our trip leader, take a dozer to a new area to knock off the topsoil a week or so before we arrive. There are three people to thank for this successful trip, in addition to Ray and Frank, Ray’s grandson, Brandon, was everywhere, riding around with Frank to keep gates opened and closed to let us in and out (and keeping the cows out), lifting rocks into cars, and moving boulders off the rock piles to ex-pose new material. All of us older members marveled at his energy and his friendly helpful manner.
Geologically, the abundant jasper and chert rocks scattered as chunks and blocks in the soil represent microscopic quartz that has replaced the top layer of the Longview Dolomite formation of the Ordovician age. John Anderson, our resident paleontologist and field trip coordinator for 2023, confirmed that some black bands in the white chert are likely fossilized bacteria (stromatolites) from nearly 450 million years ago. Each time we take the annual trip to Frank’s farm a new material seems to emerge. This trip yielded some outstanding reds and pink materials as usual, but also some new interesting, brecciated jaspers that were so well healed with secondary chert that these will make extremely interesting cabs. Two members on the trip said that they had been on at least five trips to Frank’s and always found new and interesting material. We are very thankful to Frank for his long-term support of our hobby, and we look forward to another visit in the future.
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