Alabama Rocks

Talledega Rocks

After action report on the 16 Feb 2001 field trip. I believe that some of the members of the GMS will also be letting you know how things went. We had close to 100 people from as far away as Memphis, Tenn show up at the convinience store in Ashland. About 34 cars. The trip out to the collecting site was funny, many people pulled over thinking that our group was a funeral procession. Quite a shock when you are expecting about 30-40 people and that many show up. There was plenty of material to be gathered, I personally examined quite a few different pieces, including black tourmaline crystals, kyanite crystals, flat squares of quartzite, as well as the garnets. A group of us tried to get down to Gold Mines Creek to see if we could find any of the old mines, however after many scratches from the wild blackberry brambles we didn't find anything except a small trickle. There were some very nice garnet crystals found as well as a lot of weathered cutting material. I brought some examples of how the material cuts, including a bolo tie and a "marble" I had made the week before. Excellent trip. One thing I would like to include that I believe would have made the trip a little better would have been a mineral identification table with some of the specimens and maybe a "best find of the day" award. I was bouncing around so much going from group to group getting everything organized that I didn't even think about it until afterward. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to host a field trip for the Dixie Mineral Council. We look forward to being able to host another one. James Mallonee 2nd VP/Field Trip Coordinator