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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Are the Tourist Fossicking Sites at Emerald and Sapphire QLD worth it?
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<blockquote data-quote="XLOOX" data-source="post: 671786" data-attributes="member: 16174"><p>Depends what you mean by "tourist sites" and "worth it ".</p><p></p><p>If you mean the various places in town where they give you a bucket of wash and you process it there then well you will definitely get sapphires and they will definitely be small. you would be very lucky to find one worthy of cutting.</p><p></p><p>If you mean going out to GPAs like Tomahawk Ck, Glenalva, Willows etc and digging your own dirt then what you get out greatly depends on what you put in !.</p><p></p><p>All those places can & do produce gem quality sapphires and cuttable size sapphires and given a full day digging sieving & washing you will definitely find quite a few gem quality ones and quite a few cuttable size ones. Whether you find any that are both cuttable size AND gem quality is the luck of the draw.</p><p></p><p>They havent been "dug to death" as unlike gold prospecting where everyone is searching the same surface, sapphire fossicking means digging down to teh wash layer then working your way across. Most folk just jump in a hole someone else has started & continue up or down stream. It would only be "dug to death" if all the wash layers had been accessed & processed and it is FAR from that in any of the GPAs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="XLOOX, post: 671786, member: 16174"] Depends what you mean by "tourist sites" and "worth it ". If you mean the various places in town where they give you a bucket of wash and you process it there then well you will definitely get sapphires and they will definitely be small. you would be very lucky to find one worthy of cutting. If you mean going out to GPAs like Tomahawk Ck, Glenalva, Willows etc and digging your own dirt then what you get out greatly depends on what you put in !. All those places can & do produce gem quality sapphires and cuttable size sapphires and given a full day digging sieving & washing you will definitely find quite a few gem quality ones and quite a few cuttable size ones. Whether you find any that are both cuttable size AND gem quality is the luck of the draw. They havent been "dug to death" as unlike gold prospecting where everyone is searching the same surface, sapphire fossicking means digging down to teh wash layer then working your way across. Most folk just jump in a hole someone else has started & continue up or down stream. It would only be "dug to death" if all the wash layers had been accessed & processed and it is FAR from that in any of the GPAs. [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Are the Tourist Fossicking Sites at Emerald and Sapphire QLD worth it?
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