Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society
GEM-O-RAMA
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Blow Hole Field Trip
THE BLOW HOLE MINERALS
Preparations for Blast
The Blast
On the Blow Hole field trip you will find: Pyramidal
Hanksite (very common -- all over the place), Borax (also very common),
Cubic Halite (common), Sulfohalite (not too easy to spot at first, but
it's there)
Following are photographs of some of these minerals.
The dark green "pancake" hanksite (from the mud)
is surrounded by bright yellow pyramidal hanksite crystals. The large cluster
is about six inches across and the small yellow babies average about an
inch.
Here's a nice selection of pyramidal hanksite from
the Blow Holes.
This pyramidal hanksite is approximately four inches
long, but they occasionally go up to six inches.
A very nice medium-yellow pyramidal hanksite crystal
about four inches long, with an intergrown crystal about two inches in
length. Intergrowths are common.
Another nice group of pyramidal hanksite crystals.
Largest is about four inches long.
Three specimens of borax from the Blow Holes. The
largest is about three inches long, and even larger crystals are fairly
common.
Sulfohalite is hard to spot at first since only ~0.1%
of the crystals are sulfohalite, but with practice you'll pick out several
before the trip is over. In the center of this specimen is about 1/4 inch
sulfohalite crystal - matrix is massive trona.
Go to Preparations for Blast
Go to The
Blast
Go to Gem-O-Rama Site Map
Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society
P. O. Box 966
Trona, CA 93592-0966
Phone (760) 372-5356
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