Our October 23rd field trip for the Dixie Mineral Council was very successful with over 90 participants. DMC members who travelled to Georgia to join us in Chatooga County were from Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina. One participant from Cape Fear, North Carolina, traveled over 7 hours to participate in the dig and planned to drive back home the same day.
Too many to thank for all their efforts to make the trip happen but a few noteworthy individuals did a superb job. Ray Borders (along with his grandson Brandon) set up the main canopy, tables, and lots of chairs, and Ray stayed for the day to advise people about their finds. Wes Manley brought finished cabs and examples of rough for all to have an advanced idea of what to look for and he advised many on what would cab well and which one would just be nice yard rocks or hand specimens. A big “thank you” goes to Toby Stewart for keeping track of well over 100 emails from participants, sign-in lists, and the purchase of refreshments for all (both “tasty” and “nutritious” plus lots of water bottles). And a thank you to all the participants for staying off the high areas and obeying the rules we had for being allowed in the quarry.

In addition to the typical finds of banded agate with cavities (left) some having minute quartz crystals in the open cavity at the center of the agate, Ray ended up with one of the unusual “fingers” that were siliceous stalactites that protruded into larger cavities that were crushed during the mining process . Ray said that he slices the fingers to make many numerous circularly banded silica buttons.

The canopy area was the social gathering spot. The owner of the quarry stopped by and for many of us it was a great chance to chat and learn about his continuing desire to support people’s interest in earth materials. It was like old home week, as even Chris Munson, our past photographer and national winner for his artwork in our newsletter stopped by to chat. It was nice to catch up on member’s news of children, grandkids, spouses… and details of upcoming events.

If you haven’t yet experienced the great comradery of our field trips, then you will find your first future field trip to be a great experience, so I hope to see you on one of these adventures in the near future.