January 30, 2017- Near Sahuarita, AZ
Yesterday, Connie and I took a one-day class with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and got an introduction to Arizona minerals, including learning some identification techniques: Color, Streak, Luster, Cleavage (my favorite), Specific Gravity, Hardness and other properties.
Then we had a field trip to an old mining site, reaching it's peak with several hundred small mines in the early 1900's it hasn't been mined since 1954. We ended up finding quite a few mineral samples; including, garnets, Chrysocolla (blue green and common in this region), Bornite, Calcite, Hematite, Malachite, Pyrolucite, Quartz and Magnetite!
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| Class viewing the Helvetia mine site |
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| Come of the blue-green "color" of Chrysocolla amd Malachite |
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| Dave the rockhound |
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| Crumbling adobe wall from old mine building |
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| Rock samples (not ours) |
