As I was out escaping civilization the other weekend I was able to stop by a locality that I've long wanted to go to, Gemfield.
Gemfield is located 30 minutes south of Tonopah, just outside of Goldfield, Nevada.
It's a mining claim held by a gem and mineral club in Goldfield that allows people to freely dig as long as they pay $1 per pound of material they take. The claim is famous for the unique bullseye chalcedony.
Chalcedony is a a microcrystalline variety of silica. Other examples of chalcedony are agate, chert, onyx and in the case of bullseye chalcedony, jasper. Opaque chalcedony is usually referred to as jasper, while translucent/clear is referred to as agate.
When you pull up you are greeted by a large sign explaining the rules as well as each of the different collecting localities.
A picnic bench in the shade of a Joshua tree has a sign in sheet as well as various rocks people have collected all over and left them there for others to enjoy.
The collecting area is spread out about 1 mile long. Each area has different colored stones and one area contained opal which we'll get to.
I immediately headed for the bullseye zone which happens to be the closest.
I hadn't even gotten near the main collecting area and the road and hills began to be littered with pieces that had weathered out or other collectors had tossed aside.
As I made it to the top of the hill I was greeted with boulders of the material.
While it's great to see, those boulders are insanely hard. Without proper tools they are almost pointless to attack.
Luckily, there are weathered veins in the ground making breaking the material apart much easier. There are also tons of pieces left over from other hunters so you don't have to work too hard to get some nice specimens.
Boo!
After about an hour of collecting I headed up the road to the opal zone. I was excited to see this because I wasn't expecting it. Every rock you see in the picture is an opal.
These opals don't have fire, but their surfaces have a natural, high sheen on them. They almost look like candy.
The pink opal is what I was after.
Pink opal is pretty popular if you can get it. Most of it comes out of Peru, but some comes from Idaho as well. Now I know of a third locality!
It was about 6pm and I had been mining all day so I picked up what I could and called it a day.
On the way out I ran into a pack of wild donkeys.
It was around 102 degrees so I tried to give them some water, I had a lot, but they just walked away.
It was a good day collecting quartz, fluorite, copper minerals, chalcedony & opal. Someday I'll write about collecting at those other localities. The quartz was pretty good and I got a lot. Until then, here's a picture of one of the crystals I got.
I don have a piece of bullseye chalcedony on my shop and will be listing a few more if you would like to own some of this unique material. Bullseye chalcedony Etsy.
Thanks for reading!
