Mining Sunstones and the Spoils
Off the beaten path is an understatement for the washboard, tire gobbling gravel roads that lead to the land of glittering sun on the ground. A rare and unusual place located in the South-Eastern back country of Oregon hides a precious stone found only here on the whole planet. One has to be willing to brave incredible panoramas of scrub, ancient lake beds, and soaring buttes. Passing through a refuge for Antelope is unavoidable as well as hot springs, rock-hounding of all sorts, not to mention some pretty incredible american history.
The welcoming salutations come in facets here. The sunstones are born in volcanic events wherein they cool at a different rate than their mother basalt causing them to craze and crack. This special copper infused Feldspar then resembles sections of broken car window embedded in stone. Over the course of time, the sunstones are freed from their rock wombs by erosion and litter the ground in angular crystalline form. After a fresh desert rain, they emerge like hailstones glimmering on the surface.
Ridgeline on fire with the full moon peaking through the clouds.
The lightshow continued through the night. A lightning inspired wildfire consumed acreage of some magnitude on the ridgeline above camp. A feeling of awe had already been conjured all day with twinkling finds so this evening projected us into a reverence of the natural power and beauty of these surroundings. We sat in the dark admiring the flaring show with binoculars while hoping that it would not be traveling to our doorstep.
Our rigs hanging at the Spectrum Mine with some fun, heavy equipment in the background.
The BLM has set aside a large portion of acreage if one wants to throw the dice and see what kind of mining luck one has. There are a few mines that are established that will help you mine for a fee, hedging your bets to find more than Champagne stones and get into some red, green, or blue color. Here we see the Spectrum Mine where you may pick in their cliffs or get the belt to deliver goodies to you right out of the ground.
Seriously focused on grabbing the goodies off that crazy machine at the Spectrum Mine.
What an exhilarating experience to have the bucket load come and dispense yards of gemstone riddled ground right out of the mine. The machine drops that load in increments on the conveyor belt and you must ‘eagle eye’ all of the good material as it’s going by. It’s akin to an unnerving, fast paced game show where you’re plucking or losing $$$ by the minute.
Pocket full of sunshine.
When you opt for that, you may come up with lots of Champagne stones like these. I personally love these guys ; they polish like diamonds in clarity, as a matter of fact they call them Plush diamonds, and become brilliant pieces of fine jewelry. You may come up with more schiller stones, the ones that have the fancy copper striations in them that no other feldspar has on the planet, and delight in that. You hopefully come up with some pink or red dot stones (the ones that are rated higher on the value scale). If you’re really lucky, you bagged some green, watermelon, dichroic, or blue material that would have made you straight lose your socks.
We did the belt run. We sifted through material from the Spectrum Mine with screens and shovels. We hit the basalt with picks, hammers, and chisels to extract the stones. We surface collected over fair distance to find the sun. We did find the warmth of all promised beating like a beautiful red heart inside a few special gems. There even were a few greens, watermelon, and combinations that are seriously better than candy.
A big Red Sunstone that Lisa Field found on our trip.
At the end of the day, spending the time out there would have been good without any mineral rewards. What incredible country and people! Happily, we found amazing goodies that will become impressive gemstones. We will be back for more. Working with the sunstone, carving it or on the lapidary machine, feels like playing a harp in some heavenly location. Music to my eyes, I’m hooked.
Over the next little while, there will be faceted, cabochon, and carved Sunstones coming off of the jewelry bench. I simply can’t keep my hands off them. I will be adding a profile for them on the Gemstone page with more info about them and if you have any questions about them, feel free to Contact me! Also, feel free to like and share and thanks for reading along on our adventures.
