Breaking news for Jackson's Crossroads pay to dig Georgia  amethyst crystal hole , updated Feb. 27, 2005 .     From time to time I update the pictures on this Breaking News page . I have some very cool new photos and I hope that within the day I can rebuild this page with some very interesting pictures  !  As the regional expert in breaking rocks in this part of the country , I have a lot of tricks and specialized tools to use .  One of these is  the pionjar YN120 rockdrill .   Recently I demonstrated the incredible effectiveness  of using the pionjar rockdrill  to drill holes in huge boulders and inserting a "plugs and feathers " set in the hole . Just a few taps of a 8 pound hammer - - - USING ONLY ONE HAND --- I broke a huge boulder of very hard rock !  I do mean hard rock , a boulder which sat on the surface  and had been hammered by no telling how many folks  , succumbed to this method in 6 minutes , and that included  drilling the borehole . ------ Look for an update soon !  --------------  A couple weeks ago ( Feb. 13 ) I took the backhoe and dug a drainage ditch and a cross drain  at the bad boggy spot on the main  driveway leading in , and Don Brockway made a trip a few days later and  took a pipe and threw in the ditch . I paid $600 today to a contractor who will be taking 24 tons of #4 gravel and filling the ditch and boggy area .  Hopefully he will have this done by this saturday so that folks can just drive right up to the dig area . Four guys drove down this weekend and stayed four days digging , They drove 16 hours straight , all the way from Massachsets !  I went and checked on them to day , and them boys were mighty happy with their digging results.  I'll be opening a new pay to dig locations soon !  Details are not quite ironed out ,but it should be opened in 2 weeks.   The first group in will have a very good time , so e-mail me if you want on the list for opening day .    My Information Technologies Specialist has updated my companion site with a very cool report on the Feb.12 DMC  fieldtrip . It's mostly ready now but very interestiing pictures will be added later this evening.    The Feb.12 dig started at daylight for me , when I got on a new four wheel drive backhoe from RELIABLE RENTAL , MARTINEZ ,GA. and dug up the tailings piles and rolled over boulders that were to heavy to roll by hand .   Then , I dug a new area and cordoned this off .  About 9 a.m. Norris BBQ  arrived and set up their vending trailer , providing hot coffee and real southern bbq .     10 a.m. saw the arrival of 140 diggers !  Most everyone found at least something and quite a few found really good amethyst .................and really good amethyst is something to behold !    One girl , 8 year old "Mandy" found a huge cluster of gemmy facet grade amethyst .   There is no other place around where you can get permission and go find gemmy facet grade amethyst !  be sure to visit  to read about the dmc dig  and see all the latest updates at my slick professionally designed  www.dixieeuhedrals.net  .    In other news , Mickey Cecil posted an interesting  Tucson gem show report  here : http://www.thefossilgeode.com/tucsonshow.htm      See the page covering  the Tucson show that has great pictures of Terry Ledford's Jackson's Crossroads amethyst display , click here : http://www.gamineral.org/t05-clarion_hotel.html    New ! If you like  Southeastern American amethyst then click this link ( link to my ebay auction of a Mineralogical Record back issue concerning Southern U.S. amethyst localities ,complete with awesome pictures , maps to  collectiong locations in the South, and more): http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6509929245   This page normally reserved for jxr breaking news , but I'm going to post here the results of my trip out to Arizona.   I left out on Jan.26 and arrived  in Quartsite.  A big dissapointment and not much to see.  I can't recommend visitng the place . The Q.I.A. Pow Wow  featured a lot of high priced junk and 3 good dealers.   The best booth was a fellow who had killer RED BERYL . These were all super nice and very expensive. The fellow said that he was only there becuase he applied too late to the Tucson shows. He was fixing to pack up and leave due to poor sales.  The second best booth had CALIFORNIA BERYL AND TOURMALINE FROM THE CHAMPION MINE . Really nice tourmaline xls penetrating clear quartz and reasonably priced .   The third best booth ( and I want to give a shout out here to them , my homeboys !)  was run by Charlie Padgett of N.C. and Greg Padgett of S. Carolina. They reported fair sales of very reasonably priced  GRAVES MOUNTAIN RUTILE AND IRRIDESCENT HEMATITE . Really nice quality and good prices.   I left Quartsite and headed to Tucson , to get the low-down on the low-down . My goal was to get some material to sell on eBAY , and I did that pretty well, getting nice in-expensive Vanadinite , CINNABAR CRYSTALS , Quartz from Montanna , Arizona , California , and some very unusuall "Payson diamonds"  which are similar to Herkimer Diamonds but with varying degrees of amethyst coloration and originating from "Diamond Point"  in Payson , Arizona!  I'll be posting these for sale on ebay today .  I looked for amethyst of United States origin but found none other than the payson material  and of course my " Jackson's Crossroad's amethyst "  being sold by "mountain Gems".    I think there should be some California/Nevada  Hallelujah Junction amethyst scepters that will be offered at the main show Feb. 12  by Krystal Tips Mining .  The folks at krystal tips are fast , friendly and efficient with the eBay auctions , I am providing a link to their website , which is way cool : www.krystaltipsmining.com . Lots of good foreign  material abounded . Lots of good fossils , and I met with Mickey Cecil and Gary Maddox of " www.thefossilgeode.com  " who were slinging nice calcite crystal filled  fossil clams that they had dug in Florida.      new !   Jackson's Crossroads t-shirts now in stock , visit my eBay store to purchase or just e-mail me for info.          New ............new .........new  video added , click this link and check out new video 2  : http://www.dixieeuhedrals.net/jxr/jxr_movies.php     I have had several people call to ask what the conditions will be like for the feb.12 dmc fieldtrip . Currently there are 2 holes that I have to fill . I had ordered a bulldozer out there for early to mid-week , but the contractor has had several delays . I talked to him today ( Saturday , Jan.15 ) at noon and he said if he got his tractor trailer lowboy outfit running he would go out there today and take care of the assignment.    What I want done is just basically slope the banks  and fill in th holes , but , to leave the huge talus piles and boulders .   I'll go out there soon and take a picture to post of what the place looks like .   After the fellow takes the machine out there will be fresh dirt and boulders exposed that will make for good rock hunting and boulder busting fun . And , after a rain there will be good material showing.      Speaking of recent rain ,   a fellow made arrangements to go out the other day after the rains rolled thru .   He was just going to go that evening and camp . It had rained all day and was still raining off and on .   He got there about 7:30 only to see a  dark green GMC suv  or similiar , leaving the area .  After driving two hours to the site  it appears that someone had come in without permission and  removed the exposed material---- in the pouring rain . Not only did they steal from me they stole from the guy who had arranged to collect.  I have the site checked DAILY .  It is very important not to be out there without permission . Permission is easy to get !  Otherwise ----- you are engaging in theft.  .  Be sure to visit the twin site ( but much cleaner and user friendly ) : www.dixieeuhedrals.net  and also check out the killer amethyst on sale at my ebay store : www.stores.ebay.com/dixieeuhedrals    .   I did some digging New years day and here is how things went :   I started the day with  a gathering of folks and work began in the back hole.  Despite the recent hit off a 100 pound plus pocket , when the machine was taken to that area , little was found . Even after digging 3 solid hours  !  So , off to the front hole , where it took awhile to knock down some trees and get situated.  Immediately after getting the machine placed in position a huge pocket was opened. This was a "open" or hollow pocket that was druse lined with a black thick coating of manganese . I was standing 8 feet away and noticed the begining of the pocket with amethyst inside . I rushed over and looked in and realized this was a huge pocket with amethyst clusters hangin down all over the surface. Some folks have eloquently described this phenom as "hanging down like ripe succulent concorde grapes " and others have unflatteringly described it as " hanging down like cow udders " . Generally these type pockets are fractured up and have a " rotten rind" , that is to say , the lining of the vug is heavily silicified and thusly breaks away from the host rock and fractures into plates that are easily removed .Since the vug is hollow , this greatly facilitates removal of perfect damage free clusters . Just reach in and wiggle -wiggle -wiggle , and some clusters detach readily . Those that do not can be removed by takeing the whole loose section of pocket lining out to have a plate of druse lined matrix on which rest gemmy purple amethyst .  After removing a large quantity of amethyst , I notice a crowd of folks had massed along the rim of the hole.  Since I had been blessed with such a good hit , and because the start had been terribly slow , I asked everyone to line up single file , to come down into the hole one at a time and reach into the pocket and do the wiggle thing , to extract a amethyst from the pocket. It took no time for the 25 people to line up and most were visibly very excited. One by one they came down and peered into the opening and reached up and pulled a crystal out . It's the nature of clusters for some to be ultra gemmy facet grade while the next crystal adjacent maybe cloudy . Some of the folks managed to get a killer crystal while some foilks no doubt got cloudy " dogs " . No way of telling when your collecting them because of the heavy manganese coating. This gave a lot of folks the opportunity to collect from a vug that would never otherwise have the chance. This day concluded the digging season for jxr and the area is now being flattened out level , before the miserable mid-January and february winter weather starts.  I'll leave some good big boulders up top  so they'll still be good pickings for a few weeks . I am adding a picture of one of the small clusters, just after hoseing off the manganese. This is not a particularly good one, it's just one I randomly pulled and washed. You'll probably have to scroll teh screen to the left to see the new pictures.                               On December 23 , 2004 , another vertical tube pocket was discovered that yielded over a hundred pounds of large to very large deep dark gemmy amethyst. Only 4 or five crystals were small and these rest approached fist sized or better.  The bulk of this pocket was acquired by Terry Ledford of Mountain Gems and Minerals.   These will be unvield in Tucson at his booths , you can check his location shedule by going to the above link to the .net site . Some  crystals approached 7 inches in diameter !  Pictures below is a cluster that I retained and did not sell .  It has been reconstructed becuase in most  ( but not all ) instances  the clusters fall apart as they are extracted. It has one area with a ding to one of the crystal points --the crystal on the right .  The crystal on the left in the  picture appears to be missing the tip .  This is not a area of damage but a natural crystal surface where the very tip was dissolved away  . It is very peculiar that this area dissolved back into solution as the rest kept growing !   Check back  soon to check out new pictures of the latest finds from the South's premier crystal location .................