As part of our East Coast Adventure in 2019 we spent a week collecting minerals in Newfoundland. The first site we visited was the La Manche Lead Mine https://www.mindat.org/loc-155699.html . The prize we sought? Amethyst!
Collecting with fellow members of the Walker Mineralogical Club, we had arranged for the claim owner to use an excavator to dig into the existing trench to remove waste material. That let us follow a vein along the length of the trench. Everyone spread out along the trench and started carefully digging into the face. The whole trench was inundated with manganese oxide which made a mess of everything that it comes in contact with – rocks, our clothes, ourselves! We removed a bunch of loose material and a pretty thick layer of clay that had the consistency of sculptors clay. The trick was to get behind the vein and try to remove plates of the amethyst.
While some of our group arrived at the site in the morning, we didn’t get there until around noon. We didn’t find a lot of good material that day but were fortunate that some of the others in our group shared some of their good fortune with us and with others who arrived later. Thanks to Phil Walford who gave us a great piece, 20 x15 cm covered with gemmy amethyst crystals to 2 cm.
It rained overnight so the next day the site was wet and mucky with puddles in the trench. This made the manganese oxides even worse.
The rainwater got everywhere so as we dug into the face the water turned everything into a mucky slop. But that didn’t stop us. Below is one of our finds from the next day. The left side of the photo shows the lump I pulled out of the muck with minimal cleaning done on site. The right side shows the same “lump” after a more complete cleaning when we got home.
Tracey found a number nice pieces including this one a gemmy crystal 7cm tall
Thanks to Steve Szilard our Newfoundland Field Trip Leader for organizing the overall trip and the visit to this site specifically.