My spring break is coming up soon! I plan on spending at least a few days out getting some new minerals. You could have probably guessed that would be my plan. My friends and family know how excited I am about these trips and have asked me to give them smaller, less awesome versions of the minerals I find. Please check back during the first full week of March because I will have several posts about where I go, what I find, overall impressions, and helpful directions. Seriously, one of the hardest aspects of planning these mineral-hunting trips is finding out a proper address or at least a good parking location. My plans are to travel in the mountains with maybe one stop in the foothills or piedmont.
Garnets (A2+3B3+2Si3O12)
*A represents Ca, Fe2+, Mn, or Mg
*B represents Al, Cr, or Fe3+
I got a handful of nice garnets last year with my cousin Connor. I have a greater appreciation for garnets ever since I did some more research on a whim a month or two ago on my own time. I did not have an assignment to learn more about geology and mineralogy–I just wanted to learn more. Garnets come in almost any color. I knew about some of the green garnets such as demantoid garnet and became fascinated by them. Grossular, tsavorite, pyrope, almandine, and spessartine are several other types of garnet which are also common. Garnets are colored by calcium, iron, and manganese. Garnets have a hardness of 6.5-7.5, so they are very desirable for jewelry or as an abrasive in powdered form. Almandine garnets are very common in North Carolina’s garnet-mica schists. A schist is a metamorphic rock which can have many different types of minerals within it. The rock which undergoes metamorphism in order to produce a schist is normally a felsic igneous rock or shale. Felsic igneous rocks contain more than 75% of a felsic mineral such as plagioclase, orthoclase, or quartz. These felsic rocks are characterized by being abundant in silica.
Kyanite (Al2SiO5)
I became fascinated by kyanite when I went on a hike with one of my professors to Crowders Mountain in Gaston County, North Carolina. This mountain is a monadnock which remains today because the surrounding landscape eroded away from it. It is a beautiful area which I have visited in every season. Crowders Mountain exists in Crowders Mountain State Park which will protect it in the future. Originally, people wanted to mine the kyanite which Crowders Mountain is full of before it became protected. Kyanite is a blue-grey mineral which has a hardness of 5 or 7 depending on the way it is cut. It is recognizable because of its color as well as because of its elongated crystals which look similar to columns. It occurs in the metamorphic rocks schist and gneiss as well as in igneous pegmatites. I think it is interesting that kyanite is used very frequently in spark plugs. It seems like a waste of a very beautiful mineral. I would LOVE to find some new kyanite. I definitely will not be trying to get any of the kyanite from Crowders Mountain. My sights are set on somewhere much more remote near the border of Tennessee.
Corundum (Al2O3)
North Carolina’s rubies and sapphires are very famous. That is a good enough reason for me to want to get some. Corundum includes the aluminum oxides called sapphires and rubies. Sapphires are colored based on the trace amounts of elements which are in them including iron, copper, and magnesium. Chromium is the element which makes a ruby red. So, a ruby and sapphire are the basically same thing. Both make excellent gemstones for jewelry because they are very hard (basically only diamond and “fake-diamond” moissanite are harder). You may have seen clear corundum (lab created, of course) used for a watch face so that it would not get scratched. Corundum crystals are easy to spot because of their hexagonal structures.
Wish me luck! I am very excited to find some beautiful specimens. Maybe I will even find something I can have cut!
Amy's Exploration of NC Geology 
In your travels, please make the hike to Chunky Gal Mountain for me. I’ll never get there, but always wanted to make the trek for some of that beautiful cream/green/pink ruby rock.
If you seek an unsalted mine you must visit Mason’s outside Franklin. Ma Mason was a true mountain woman when she still rocked in her chair on the porch watching all her mine visitors. I read that new ownership recently excavated part of the hillside to open up new material. It’s the only one where you dig your own dirt that I know of. It’s hard work, but the pink/violet sapphires are worth the effort. Stay more than a day. It’s one of my favorite places – one of the first I went to as a rock puppy. Mason’s was originally operated by Tiffiny & Co,
I’m going to post a photo of a Chunky Gal ruby I was given while spending a week at Mason’s. And a white…???? I dare not wonder what it is that settled in the bottom of my gold pan in a creek feeding the Cullasaja River.Very strange crystal form to my experience. I’ll post photos of these on my WordPress and http://www.arkadestones.com in a day or two for you to examine if you’re interested.
Rock on, Amy!