Mineral Collecting, Crystal Digging, and Fossil Hunting in NY & PA
Author: povdig_2eftef
Huge Herkimer Diamond quartz crystals pulled from the Earth. They sat in a void in the dolostone for 500 million years. Hastings Farm/Diamond Acres in Fonda, New York. These big ones are known to local miners as “Fonda Footballs”. Vug/pocket crystal collecting at it’s finest. Witness their birth below:
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Here’s a Herkimer Diamond quartz crystal that was printed by a 3D printer. No, it’s not actually quartz, but it takes the shape of an original Paradise Falls Herkimer Diamond. 3D printing done by Eli Shober.
Part 2 of digging fern fossils in St. Clair, PA. Splitting a couple slabs at home. Carboniferous, 300+ million years old. Species include pecopteris, alethopteris, sphenophyllum, and many more.
Digging Carboniferous fern plant fossils at an old coal strip mine in Saint Clair, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.. The white color is the mineral pyrophyllite, which is a pyrite psuedomorph. They are dated at around 300 million years old.
Collecting black drusy quartz crystals and herkimer diamonds at the Area 51 Claim, Diamond Acres/Hastings Farm, Fonda NY. the Area 51 Claim has produced some incredible specimens in the last couple seasons.
Some fluorescent calcite/willemite mineral specimens from The Sterling Hill Mining Museum’s 2018 night dig, as well as fluorescent zincite and {?} from the Palmerton, Pennsylvania slag locality. Shown under the DRK Light shortwave UV lamp.
Surface collecting Herkimer Diamond quartz crystals at the Russell Family Mine in Little Falls, NY. Scepters are known to be found at this locality. Most crystals here found just laying on the surface on and in the dirt. This is Grayson’s 2nd dig at 6 months old.
Here’s a video from Tresckow, Pennsylvania. Digging quartz crystals and stunning colorful peacock coal, also known as rainbow anthracite. This mine is no longer accessible. View many more PA crystal and mineral collecting videos here: https://www.youtube.com/digdigdig
This video is of Jason roaming the grounds at Paradise Falls in Middleville, NY after a major flood. He finds a few nice Herkimer Diamonds right on the surface. Surface finds like these are rare in the Herkimer District, most crystals in the area are encased in hard dolomitic limestone. Heavy equipment and power tools are usually required to extract these crystals. Finding them without hard work is a blessing. View many more Herkimer Diamond mining videos at https://www.YouTube.com/DigDigDig