Mineralogy Field Trip to Arkansas

November 13-16, 2003

Blakely Mountain Dam

From left to right: Dr. Sarah Hanson, Dr. Forest "Rock" Haines, Mandy LeBlanc, Nick Crooks, Kevin Griffin, Karen Fulcher, Andrew Stewart, Mike Phillips, Kara Tecco.
Day 1. We left Adrian fashionably late on a cold, windy, snowy day. We drove all day and arrived at the campground at Lake Catherine State Park just after midnight.
Day 2. We spent the morning and early afternoon at the Fiddlers Ridge quarry collecting quartz crystals. We all found wonderful quartz crystals. And got covered in red clay. Fun!
The group searches for quartz crystals.
Nick Crooks
Mike Phillips and Rock
 Andrew with our host.
After a brief stop at the wavellite quarry, which was closed, we headed to the Blakely Mountain Dam to look at folded strata exposed along a road cut there. Back: Andrew Stewart, Nick Crooks and Karen Fulcher. Front: Kevin Griffin and Kara Tecco.
With a little help (OK, we had to drag him there), Rock posed with Nick Crooks and Sarah next to the students' new favorite sign.
We then returned to camp, cooked burgers and dogs and enjoyed a campfire. Rock demonstrated to Nick and the rest of us the art of roasting marshmallows.
Day 3. We spent a wet day near Magnet Cove looking for minerals in the Magnet Cove ring dike complex. This alkaline igneous complex consists of a series of ring dikes that were intruded into folded and faulted Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of the Ouachita geosyncline. It is from these alkaline rocks that many of the cool minerals we were collecting weathered out.
Our first stop was the world famous carbonatite outcrop where we found, in addition to calcite, small magnetite and aegerine crystals. Here Kevin Griffin stands in next to an excellent exposure of the carbonatite while Andrew and Karen look for aegerine crystals..
We then proceeded to to a road cut where we collected brookite crystals. We had lunch at a quarry where the famous Arkansas novaculite is mined to make whetstones. In spite of the forecast of clearing weather, it was getting colder and wetter....
Crossing the stream at the pyrite location proved easy this year. We were wet before we even started so there was no reason to worry about getting wetter in the stream. Many fine pyrite crystals were collected along the banks of the stream just before it started to rain harder, a lot harder. So we left earlier than we planned. Kevin Griffin demonstrates excellent skill in crossing the stream.
We thought it would be prudent to look for phlogopite where we could hide under a bridge. Here phlogopite is weathering out of the nearby alkalic rocks and is accumulating along the banks and in the stream bottom. But most importantly, it was not raining under the bridge.
We spent the rest of the afternoon perusing the local warm, dry rock & mineral shops. A few mineral specimens and jewelry were purchased by the faculty and students. Sarah purchased a fine galena specimen with an unusual habit and quized (tortured) the mineralogy students with it.
We ended the day with a wonderful repast at Stubby's fine barbeque.
Day 4. After packing lots of wet camping gear in the van we headed out for the long drive back to Adrian.
The students took advantage the long drive to catch up on their sleep. We took a long break at one rest area. Here Sarah pushes Andrew on the tire swing.