We were up WAY early for our first full day of collecting at Orogrande. Our "body clocks" were still set for the Eastern Time zone, and this, along with the end of daylight savings time two days earlier, meant that our normal wake up time of 6:00 AM was now happening at 3:00 AM whether we liked it or not (we didn't). So, there we laid trying our best to fall back to sleep while waiting for dawn to break. We never really fully adjusted to the time change during our stay, so we generally fell asleep very early and got up a couple hours before first light, giving us plenty of time to get ready for each full day.
We drove out to Orogrande to find a clear blue sky above the Jarilla Mountains.
Our plan for the day was to visit a location that Eddie had told us about where large euhedral feldspar crystals in some sort of "hard rock" could be found. Along the way, we stopped at every abandoned mine working we passed to hunt for whatever we could find. With a plethora of minerals in the Orogrande District, you never know what you'll find just around the next hill.
We came across an old shallow cut on a ridge that was particularly loaded with silicified chrysocolla, azurite and malachite along with an assortment of other rocks and minerals.
Click on specimen pictures to enlarge
I would find out later at home that the silicified chalcopyrite, azurite, malachite make absolutely beautiful cabochons.
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There seemed to be no end to the mineral variety.
Click on specimen pictures to enlarge
After gaining a few more pounds in our packs, we continued to follow Eddie's verbal directions to the feldspar-rich rock outcrop. Even with the complex topography and many crisscrossing overgrown mine roads, we managed to locate the spot.
Yep, Eddie was right, there were lots of large perfectly formed feldspar (my guess was orthoclase) crystals in some very hard rock, but the trick would be getting them out either alone or in matrix.
With some effort, we managed to recover a handful of excellent matrix specimens, and a few loose crystals. I would later confirm in a geology resource that the large salmon colored crystals are orthoclase in a monzonite porphry.
Click on specimen picture to enlarge
The perfectly symmetric twinning exhibited by many of the crystals is outstanding.
I even dragged home a few matrix pieces to hack up for cabbing . . .
(Cabochon pictures do not enlarge)
Even though is was only in the mid-70s, it was warm enough for Opal to seek shade wherever she could find it.
By mid-afternoon, we made our way back to the truck to drop off our rocks and then hiked a short distance to another mine to hunt around before calling it a day.
Report continued . . . . . . .
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