New find

[mick B]

Found some great material today, one large boulder that has some pink lightning bolts with jasper mix, the pink is getting brighter and cleaner, and some bright yellow, great feeling to find this new site. 

[Ken S.]

Really nice, like the beautiful pink color .  For any jewelry pieces you make, would you zero in on the pink or leave some border around for contrast?

ken s.
NYC-USA
(anxiously waiting for my trim saw to arrive)

[mick B]

Thanks, found a great rose pink boulder, and today Margie cut the first cab .

[dickb]

That pendant really turned out well. Nice work and I sure wish we had nice pinks like that here in iowa. Home of limestone and granite. Ha 

Dickb

[Mark]

That is great material.  If you could find tons of it, you could do really well selling rough.  I love the yellow and the other shades and with the contrasty black lines, WOW.  Besides the pure transparent gemmy stuff, I am going to say that I think you have the best Rhodonite i have ever seen.  That is some kick ass stone.  Beautiful rich pinks, nice yellows and other tints, great contrasty black lines and some light honey like areas.  The honey like areas remind me of calcite that i have seen in some slabs made up of blue apatite, black rock, and honey yellow calcite.  That slabs i have are soft, but still pretty kool.  Your stone is definitely amonst the best Rhodonite out there, besides the red gemmy stuff which i don't even consider to be in the same class of stone as your Rhodonite.  They are like 2 separate stones, one for lapidary (your new rhodonite) and the other for carving or maybe even faceting (gemmy red rhodonite).  Have you ever found any gemmy red with metallic stone attached and still on matrix, as in a specimen.  I know Broken Hill in New South Wales is an area where they consider the gemmy red rhodonite amongst the best specimen material to be found.

Mark

[mick B]

Thanks Dick & Mark, it also contains pyroxmangite, in the pic you will see some long crystals running along the bottom left, I have some that has been tested from a friends mine in my region and these look the same, 60 mm long, I do still find good red but getting rare, all the rhodonite we have found so far has a thick manganese layer, easily 1 in thick, still only scratching the surface, this sits on the peel fault zone, I have a copper deposit that's close by, heaps of metamorphic rocks, interesting about the yellow garnet, will love some more input on that. have not found any large crystals that would facet, but have seen some from our region.

[Alvin]

looks like a solid retirement fund. great looking material. dig on

[Lookout Mountain Man]

Beautiful material...Superb cabs!

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[mick B]

We went back to our new rhodonite find today, found the main solid manganese seam, left a 100 kg piece that is dug in like a tick, contains good pink, I think the gray green material surrounded by pink rhodonite is tephrite, heaps of jasper in the mix, the large boulders above Margie are jasper.