PSA: My old geology professor's trick for finding garnets in Vermont schist actually worked.

I was out near Rutland last fall, just hitting schist with my hammer and not seeing much. He always said to look for the specific rusty orange stains on the rock face, not just the dark spots. Found a pocket with three decent almandine crystals after twenty minutes. Anyone know other field signs for mineral pockets in metamorphic rock?

4 comments

4 Comments

seanc732mo ago

My buddy found quartz veins near a fault line once.

jordan_hill2mo ago

Sounds like a cool find. Fault lines can push up some wild stuff.

laura6672mo ago

Wow @seanc73, that seems to happen a lot around here!

emery1022h ago

You've dealt with this too, huh? It's like once people notice one thing, they start seeing it everywhere. What's helped me is keeping a small field notebook and jotting down the exact coordinates when I find something good. That way I don't waste time going back to spots that look promising but are actually duds. Also, try taking a sample home and breaking it open with a hammer sometimes the real crystals are hidden inside those dull-looking rocks. Just make sure you've got permission to collect on whatever land you're on, cause folks around here get touchy about that.