Mineral Mondays #88 - Chasing The Amethyst

The older I get the more important and truer the word perseverance becomes. As has been the case while searching for amethyst crystals in California. Located near the border of California and Nevada is a small mountain range know as the Kingston Range.

It's a remote spot about 45 minutes from the 15 freeway that connects Los Angeles to Las Vegas that holds a treasure many seek, but few find, some of the world's best amethyst crystals.

While I have hunted the Kingstons several times over the past 5 years, it was only this last October that I found the elusive treasure, large amethyst crystal clusters, phantom amethyst crystals and reverse scepter terminated crystals.

Reverse scepter? Phantom Amethyst? Let me give you a quick explanation.

Scepter termination - A scepter termination is when a bulb crystal grows on top of another crystal to finish the growth or termination. This amethyst wand of mine is a good visual example.

Those are fairly rare and sought after. Now, take that image and reverse it. You have a normal crystal with and elongated crystal on top of it. That's a reverse scepter termination. It's very odd, very rare and I found a small pocket full of them!

Some are very unique like this "king's crown".

Phantom Amethyst - a phantom crystal is a crystal growth that you can see inside of a crystal. It looks like a crystal inside of a crystal, a ghost or phantom. Kind of like a tree ring, but in crystal form.

Now, with those explanations out of the way, let's get back to perseverance.

In my previous attempts on the mountain I only had luck in finding bleached amethyst & quartz and the occasional light colored amethyst. Even though I was hiking for cumulative days, the good treasure eluded me. Then I talked to a friend about hunting out there and he told me you have to hike almost up to the peaks because the lower veins of crystals have been hunted for almost 100 years. I watched a video of him and his friends finding amazing clusters and I set my mind to doing the same. Here is their video.

I knew it was out there, I just had to change my tactics finding it. So I hiked all the way up to a peak, which took me about 3hrs. When I reached the top though I was disappointed to see there were no quartz veins. The views were nice though!

I took lunch, then began my descent down a different part of the mountain. Within only a few hundred feet I spotted it, a previous small dig that had weathered to reveal crystals.

Within minutes I had started pulling out crystals I had been searching years for.

Perseverance.

I decided to stay the night and the next weekend further prospecting. It would pay off in lots of the afore-mentioned specimens as well as some nice sunsets & sunrises.

Finding the crystals is one thing. Then they have to be prepped. Often times they will come out of the ground like this.

So they have to be cleaned & trimmed. The first cleaning I do, sometimes right there in the field, is just a water clean by a bottle and brush or a hose. Then I can basically see what I am dealing with. The next step in cleaning will be with soap and water, Simple Green and/or a fabric gun(high pressure water gun). That process will be enough for the crystals to go in an acid bath. I cook the crystals in a crock pot with oxalic acid for 6-8 hours to remove most of the other remaining impurities. 9 times out of ten this will do the job. After this process sometimes they need to be trimmed. This is done with a special vice I have as well as a tile saw. After trimming the specimens will finally be ready for others to enjoy.

The whole process from digging the crystals up to a finished product is a lot of work and takes years of practice to achieve, but the reward is so satisfying. You have one of nature's masterpieces, created millions of years ago, to marvel at & display in your home.

I am always fascinated thinking about the process. How does a crystal grow to a certain length, shape, color, size etc. I know there are formulas regarding pressure, heat etc., but I think there's more to it.

Anyway, that's it for this Mineral Mondays. Maybe next time I'll post about the $1000 benitoite crystal I found also in October due to perseverance! See you next time!

Thanks for reading!