This weekend I had a chance to participate in a MAGMA
(Mountain Area Gem and Mineral Association) dig in Prospect, Virginia for
amethyst. Prospect, VA is located a few
miles from Appomattox, Virginia and the Appomattox Court House National
Historic Park in the rolling hills of central Virginia. The dig site is located
on a dairy farm known as Scufflin Acres just off highway 460.
I arrived Thursday
afternoon around 1pm after setting up camp at Holiday Lake State Park about 30
miles away. I wanted to get a lay of the
land and see if there might be a chance to get an extra day of digging, I was
in luck. After paying my fee, I headed
down into the new trench the MAGMA members had opened up with the backhoe. This was the first time I had been to a site
that was freshly opened and was anticipating huge plates of amethyst. I one of
my dreams I had visions of a 1500 pound plate of pure purple. Of course it was only a dream but a rockhound
is entitled to those dreams so one might as well dream big.
There was plenty of
digging room and the choices to pick a spot to dig was a bit overwhelming. So I
grabbed a spot and started digging. After three hours I packed up my goodies
and headed back to camp for a little clean up. My finds did not reveal any
purple, but there were a few points that promised better pickings ahead.
I woke up the next
day, about 3am, to the sound of rain hitting my camper. When I opened the door
I discovered it was not rain, but SNOW. And not just snow, the icy type of snow
that when it hits you in the face it stings. So I went back to bed hoping that
it would let up, which was not the case.
After arriving at the dig site around 7:30am the snow had changed to
those soft flaky type. With temps around
20 degree's I had to start digging to
stay warm. It snowed all day and did
not let up until around 3pm. The ground was covered in the white stuff, but the
digging was good. I found some nice plates that that had some points and just
might show some purple.
Over the next two
days I dug allot more and finally came away after four days of digging with
five, 35 gallon cat litter containers of material. All of which looked very
promising. Oh and did I mention after all the snow, we had two days of 70
degree temps. Which caused the red clay
to turn into a nice gooey mess. In the end several of us at the dig had
to be towed out of the dig site, me included. But I had loads of fun, the
highlight being with like minded rock hounds.
Once I got home and
started the cleaning process of my finds I was very surprised to finds loads of
the purple. The one thing about this
site is you can find amethyst but most of the stuff I found crumbs in your
hands which leaves you with small pieces, but I did find a few nice ones that
held up to cleaning. Once I get these
cleaned up a little better I will add some pictures.
Here is some pictures
of the dig site that will give you an idea how cold the site was for a few
days.
Me in the middle with my back to camera near the red and yellow bucket
