Page 5 - SparHawk Maine Tourmaline

Ice Cream Sundae Puddle Pocket in background
I sat at the edge of this new pocket watching four guys taking turns reaching in and pulling handfuls of green crystals one after another. I made the comment “I’ve always imagined this was what tourmaline min- ing was like” and they all laughed, you can hear their comments on our sixteen minute Ice Cream Sundae video. They made it clear this was not what their’s or anyone’s experience of gem mining was like... and that this day and this pocket were exceptional.
A while later, I took a turn at the pocket and what I experienced sur- prised me. The best way to describe it was as I explained to someone sev- eral days later that it was like reaching into a huge half-melted ice cream sundae made with vanilla ice cream. Following my turn, this is what I wrote. “The opening is small, just barely big enough for a hand to fit. The edges of the opening are sharp, lined with small tourmaline crystals, lepidolite and cleavelandite . The pocket is filled with gray chalky colored water. Its temperature is cool, comfortable. Reaching down and in half way to the elbow under water, I can feel the talc-like smooth white clay. I can feel the crystals all shapes and sizes embedded helter-skelter in the slippery white clay. I can feel the long smooth angularity of the blade like sides of crystals. I can feel the flat terminations and pointy termina- tions and long and short crystals. Moving my hand around I can feel the clay dissolve and crystals drop into my hand. Pulling my hand to the sur- face, water and clay spill away and there in first light are green tourma- line, some with rose colored tips.” Going back to the ice cream sundae analogy. The consistency of the white clay material was like half melted vanilla ice cream. Liquid on top, softening at the bottom. The density of this thick soup was such that when one swirled the hand and wrist around,
3