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October 31, 2009 Back to the same spot as last week. Today I found the source of the crystals. The crystals came
from alpine-type fissures present through one area of this location.  I realized that the rounded and water worn rocks scattered
all about the area were pushed there and spread out by a bulldozer.  This confused the geology.  There was about 5 inches
of newly excavated and mixed up dirt that had been pushed and spread over in situ earth. After a bit of scraping with the
mattock I began to reveal the fissures.
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It doesn't look like much but when the quartz was located in this area, there was always crystallization present.
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Carefully extracting the contents of the fissure, I immediately began to see crystallization.
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An edge of a crystal is found after a few more shovels of dirt.
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It was a nice smoky crystal with an undamaged termination.
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This picture shows the alpine-type fissure containing crystallized quartz.  The matrix containing
the fissure shows the foliation running perpendicular to the fissure -- a signature of alpine-type fissures
.
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Two very nice crystal terminations are revealed when extracting the contents of another fissure in the same area.
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Reticulated rutile is present on the side of this crystal. These rutile crystals are unusually
large when compared to other reticulated rutile specimens I have found in Wake County.
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Here is a close up of the reticulated rutile.
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This was a very successful trip.  I was very satisfied with my finds and look forward to going back to search
for more alpine-type fissures.  Wtih Joe's help, a bit of detective work, and some luck,  I was able to locate the
fissures  in the area.  Big thanks goes to Joe for revealing the location of this great area!
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This crystal cluster was found on the following day while excavating more fissures that were discovered nearby.
It was interesting to see that each fissure averaged a little under a foot in length and around 2 or 3 inches thick.
Each fissure usually produced one small prize.  Each time I found a fissure it was like opening a little treasure box.
Sometimes the prize was small, and sometimes a real treasure.
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