O'Briens Creek for Easter

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Hi folks,

Carol and I went to O'Briens Creek for Easter and although we put bugger all effort into looking for topaz, we managed to find a couple. We also stopped into Lava Plains Fossicking Area on the way back and got a couple for our 1.5 hours digging. We got a 62 & 120 carat clear topaz and a couple of 5.5 carat saphires. The saphires are hard to see into and are not cleaned up fully yet even using a good light. :) Yeh I know, they look like ordinary rocks. :(

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I think we will be making another trip back to Lava Plains in the future. ]:D

Cheers

Doug
 
Gemstones are always nice to see Rockhunter, even better to find hey ! :Y: 8) :p
 
Hi SneakyCuttlefish,

Lava Plains was only a quick visit to see what it was like. Plenty of long grass so I had to have guess on where to go. Tried the creek banks on the south side of Mines Hill. I did want to try the north side but I couldn't remember what was on the map when we got there.

Dry sieving there was different to the other saphire fields we have gone to as there really wasn't a proper wash layer. It was red volcanic soil from the top down to about 2 mtrs where the shale layer is. We did see a small intermitant grey clay layer about 50mm thick about 150mm from the top. This is where we seemed to find what saphires we got.

Most of the saphires were coated in volcanic soil but one off the 5.5ct ones was definately of royal blue colour.

We plan on making another trip there sometime in the future and spend the whole day there. Just remember that you have to park out front and walk in. The round trip would be about 2kms. Easy walking but watch out for the rocks hiding in the grass.

Hope this helps. :) :)

Cheers

Doug
 
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