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Arkansas Fall Mineral Collecting Trip
You are here: MineralCollecting.org >> Posted Articles >> Article 17

Write-up by Henry Barwood

I am pleased to report on our recent trip to Arkansas to collect (mostly micro) minerals. I was unable to attend the "regular" Coon Creek trip this year, so I organized a trip for those interested in collecting in the Arkansas syenites (my favorite area!). Joining me on the trip were my son, Adam and his friend Amy, George and Judy Meggerle, Art Smith, Al Kidwell, Meredith York, Bob Gamble, Bill Dotson, and Bill Pryor. Many "regulars" including Mike Howard, Henry Delinde, Charles Steuart and Bob Stevens were unable to be with us and were missed.

Thursday, October 19 we assembled at the office of the Granite Mountain Quarries and were met by Lynn Burton, Mine Geologist. After signing in and signing a release, Lynn gave us the run of the quarry and after waiting on a small blast we were ready to collect. Our first stop was on the Northeast wall of the Granite Mountain Number 1 quarry where a dike has been exposed for several years that contains interesting zeolites. Excellent specimens of orange stilbite, red chabazite, calcite, tetranatrolite, analcime, aegirine, titanite, chlorite and orthoclase have been collected over the years. This area has been cleaned up a bit lately, but good specimens were still collectable. The lower bench is just starting to remove material from the dike and collecting should become better over the next year or so.

After collecting all we wanted, we moved to the east face of the main ramp dividing the two quarry pits and collected some vuggy pegmatite that has potential for rarer minerals. This area yielded some nice kuptletskite and bastnaesite/parisite about 5 years ago, but was covered by fill material for a number of years until it was recently removed. The area around the ramp has been a source of nice pegmatite mineralization since the early 1980's, but collecting is only good when they are working on the ramps. The zone surrounding the pegmatites has also produced large orange analcimes and an occasional green andradite garnet.

We then moved to the west pit and collected on the extension of the pegmatite zone. This area produced some of the finest micro specimens ever found here three years ago. A zone in the dike had a large vuggy pegmatite that contained acicular aegirine spearing analcite, red chabazite, orange heulandite, kuptletskite, titanite and an as yet to be identified yellow mineral (possibly narsarsukite). We did not find much of this type of material on this trip because the area has been used to dump oversize rock. They are starting another level in the pit and in a year or so they should reach the dike and expose new material.

After lunch we shifted to the Granite Mountain Number 2 quarry to collect. The number 2 quarry has always been relatively devoid of anything collectable, but in the last year has yielded a small amount of very interesting pegmatite material. Construction of a haul road connecting this quarry with the 3M Big Rock Quarry has opened a border zone containing some of the coarsest pegmatite in any of the quarries. Unfortunately, only a tiny amount of this pegmatite contains any open vugs. Some spectacular examples of niobian titanite, mosandrite, bastnaesite (?), fergusonite, catapleite and a large number of unidentified minerals have been found. We did manage to collect several buckets of potentially good material (at least it had some vugs).

Late in the afternoon, Lynn Burton escorted us to a new quarry site in Saline County near Bauxite. Granite Mountain Quarries is going to open a crushed stone operation on a low ridge just north of the old bauxite pits. Stripping is underway and large piles of surface boulders were available for us to examine. Judging by the variety of syenites, xenoliths and phonolite dikes, this area will likely yield some interesting specimens eventually. Production should start sometime in 2001 and we will keep an eye on this quarry as it develops.

On Friday, October 20, we visited the 3M Big Rock quarry. After checking in and signing releases, we placed little red cones on each vehicle to identify us as visitors. They now have a full time guard and a remotely controlled gate limiting access to the actual quarry area. I made for an area where some pegmatite was exposed last year and within minutes was joined by the rest of the group wanting to know what I was collecting. Since the pegmatite was now 20 feet up on the quarry wall, I wasn't collecting a whole lot! After a quick survey of the situation, I recruited a breaker operator to move over to the wall and knock down about 3-4 tons of the pegmatite. After that, collecting was pretty good. This pegmatite was very rich in kuptletskite, eggletonite, lavenite, brithiolite, pink niobian titanite, pyrophanite, aegirine, fluorite, betafite and sphalerite. Adam located a small pegmatite on the opposite wall that turned out to be the find of the day. It was a border zone pegmatite with mineralization like our original pegmatites of the early 1980's. A quick look at this material showed nice catapleite and some of the analcime coated crystals of nepheline typical of this type of pegmatite.

After lunch we moved to the top bench where they are developing a level that has nice gas cavities and open veins with mineralization. We collected some specimens of analcite crystals to about 1 inch and two sprays of natrolite to about 2.5 inches in length. This area will probably yield some interesting material over the next several years.

Late in the day I took the group across the old stockpile area opposite the plant to the exposure of quartz syenite. There was little enthusiasm for this locality until Adam drilled the old railroad cut and popped out some blocks of material with vugs up to 2 inches. We found some interesting quartz and feldspar lined vugs that had blebs of ice clear hyalite opal on the quartz and had micros of siderite, pyrite, anatase and fluorite. I found one specimen that has a badly etched octahedron of green fluorite about a centimeter on a side. At times this material has yielded some beautiful anatase micros.

After traveling to Malvern to spend the night, we spent an enjoyable evening at Charles and Ann Steuart's CTS Rock Shop. Charles is looking good despite his recent illness and seems almost his old self.

Saturday, October 21, we met at the office of the Martin Marietta Jones Mills Quarry (formerly Highway 51 Quarry of Mid-State Construction). After a safety lecture and release signing, we were escorted into the quarry. Unfortunately, the only level with any potential was being worked and we were not allowed to collect there. The mine is moving away from the Magnet Cove contact and mineralization is limited. I'm not certain if there will be much to collect for some time as they develop the new areas. Other than a few pyrite specimens, some massive fluorite and a few micro siderite vugs, little was found. At 10:00AM the main group left to visit some people who are mining Mauldin Mountain wavellite. Adam, Amy and I decided we couldn't pack in any more specimens without blowing out the tires, so we left for Bloomington.

We had a very enjoyable and productive trip. It will be some time before I'm able to sort out all the material and determine exactly what we found.

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