Underground Mines Galore

Fields and acres of short yellow flowers covered the lower cow pocked hillsides as we headed North and East towards the Montezuma gold mining district. Higher up the mountain, light swirls and dustings of Styrofoam sleet balls sprinkled my hair as we searched, a biting chill wind testing my bones, but not quite enough falling ice to actually accumulate on the ground. We've taken this road to Montezuma many times before, but we have yet to explore all the region has to offer.







Along one dirt road, car sized blocks of pure glistening white marble can easily be seen. This area was once mined for marble but now only crumbling blocks of cement foundations remain in places where the marble blocks were once slid along cables to the main road.




In this same area, we often find small garnets. Recently, Dave found a nice pocket of large garnets and aquamarines, but this area is fickle. You might find a decent pocket right away or you might dig for hours and days and not find another. Today, we found very little other than a few very small garnets, one of which you can see in the photo.



Driving along one of the smaller brush covered paths, Dave also found a very large boulder hidden among the weeds which managed to apply a very large dent to the right underside of his jeep, just under the passenger side door. It also tore off a chunk of plastic moulding that was left to dangle precariously. But the damage looked to be all aesthetic, so we pressed on through the high shrubs.


Later in the day, the sun broke through the clouds, dissipating the sleet, and we drove to an area where many old gold mine tunnels can be found. And we were sure to explore as many as we could. The first one was entirely flooded, the water actually spilling out along the road and into a small river. We surmised that the excavation there probably opened a small spring that may run all year around, feeding the river beside it.

However, other mine entrances were higher and drier. In the photo, you can see Dave inspecting a large vein of white quartz inside one of the mine tunnels and in another photo, you can see a closeup of one tiny gold nugget present right there in the mine wall quartz (click on photo for larger view). Yes, squint very hard, it's that tiny speck! As often happens, the gold was present in areas of white quartz that had heavy iron staining (that reddish color on the quartz) and also dark almost bluish staining that indicates presence of other metals. Dave did his best to collect what nuggets he saw and those that did not accidentally fall onto the mine floor and become lost with the other dirt and rock have ended up in a small baggie for later inspection.

Many of the mines have preexisting denizens like rats that weave large nests from dried grasses, and bats that cling onto the walls and ceiling waiting for dusk to start their activities. As I zoomed in for a photo of one of the bats, my head brushing against the ceiling as I did so, I suddenly felt a small tickle on my ear and I jumped back, only to realize it was just Dave tickling my ear and not an actual bat. He was trying to mess with me and I guess he succeeded!

Bare in mind that all of these mine tunnels were pitch black inside. We all had small flashlights but for the most part, I could see very little. In order to take photos, I would just point and click and only later find out what showed up in the flash of light generated by the camera flash. Therefore, I was rather surprised in one flash photo to see that Sesame Pooch had turned into a glowing demon eyed chupacabra dog! But I guess she needed those x ray eyes to so blithely stroll around inside the mines with us, even though any other smart and sane dog would have had common sense enough to wait outside instead. I would have been nervous of her potentially falling into a vertical shaft, but some of us had been in these mines some years earlier, so we knew there were no dangerous drop offs present.

In the demon dog mine, the camera also found many orbs which are round circle things that seem to float in the air and usually only show up in camera photos. Orbs are either specks of dust or evidence of ghosts, depending on who you ask, but for whatever reason, there were hundreds of orbs in almost all photos from that one demon dog mine, but none appeared in any photos from any of the other mines. You can see some of the orbs in the demon dog photo.

Overall, the day was fun and the scenery beautiful. I even enjoyed the sleet as, being a California girl, I see such a thing only very rarely, and it did not interfere with our rock hunt. However, we did not find much take home rock this day. I guess I will just have to instead work on the tons I already have in my front yard!

Retina Scorchers Part II

I have too many flower photos! Here are a few more just to fill up the day. Click on individual photos for larger view. Acacia redolens is a low growing hardy drought tolerant shrub that has millions of yellow puff ball flower this time of year.


Another crowd pleasing shrub is pink raphiolopus, which is planted all over the place in parking lots and other difficult landscaping areas. It's a survivor and this time of year, it becomes saturated with pink flowers.

The bouganvillea plants are just starting to bloom now as well. They come in many colors like red, violet and purple. This one is a red violet color. Bouganvillea will bloom for the entire warm season. It's flowers are not true flowers but instead are modified leaves that change color at the end of the stalks for an exquisite display of vibrancy.

Dangling clumps of purple wisteria are just starting to emerge from their pods at this time. Eventually, these beautiful danglers will turn to seed pods that will wait until a windy day in fall at which time they will snap open violently and their seeds will eject all over my yard. On that day, I will hear the snapping sound all day as these pods intermittently explode. And once the rains come, seedlings will begin to sprout in all manner of odd places.

On the flip side, the wild lilac season is just coming to a close right now. Chaparral hillsides in this area experience several weeks of intense blue color as the wild lilac bushes push out their blooms. These wild children need no water once established and grow naturally all around me. In addition, many cultivars are planted as landscape. In the photo, you can see a large tree like bush of lilac in full bloom with Sesame Pooch lounging below the trunk, and a close up view of the flowers in the photo just down and to the right of the larger photo.

The large tropical leaves and bright orange tongues of the Bird of Paradise flower seem to please men the world over. Every man I've known has liked this flower but could not say exactly why. This bush grows readily in San Diego county.

Another classic flower is Vinca with its picturesque chiseled blue flowers. Vinca is a hardy drought tolerant vine that grows well in shade, unlike most flowers that instead like sun.

Part one of Retina Scorchers is here.

I've spent a lot of time viewing flowers lately, but I miss my rocks! Luckily, Dave told me yesterday that he found a new nearby location that has small garnets and aquamarine crystals! Hopefully, we will be able to go there again on Saturday so I can get me some good pictures and specimens!

Retina Scorching Flowers of San Diego

The flowers around my house have exploded. Color is everywhere. Click on photos for a larger view and bare with me as I can't resist posting some photos of our local flowers that grow well in this area. If you choose the right plant for its environment, it will thrive with little care.


One of the local favorites is this vibrant fluorescent lavender ice plant (top left), the flowers of which have such an intense color that they could easily be mistaken as fake. During flowering season, it creates a carpet of color that can be seen for miles. Bright lavender is the most common color but a bright red type can also be found and in this photo (2nd down on left), they grow side by side.


But the classic California flower had got to be the California poppy which in the right season will cover the hills in orange and gold. Here is a closeup view of one poppy plant (top right) with multiple floppy four lobed flowers. However, apparently at this current time, all of the fields of gold that I found turned out to be caused by a different flower, the vibrant African Daisy (2nd down on right) which looks like fields of gold from far away (3rd down on right), but turned out to look quite different from poppies close up. They only share a common color.


Another common appearance here along the hillsides are bright fuzzy splashes of orange floating on top of other plants (3rd down on left). These orange vines (4th down on right) in the photo are not flowers at all but in fact are a parasitic vine called Dodder which first sprouts and grows as a normal plant but then must quickly find a host plant to feed from. It wraps it's tendrils around the host plant and derives all of its nutrients from that plant.


Dodder in our area seems to grow mostly through the winter and spring and then die back for the rest of the year, corresponding with the typical wild plant growing season here in San Diego where winter brings much needed rainwater but no snow except for in the highest elevations.

Other common sights during this time of year include delicate clumps of white flowered sweet alyssum (4th down on right), red rods of fluffy bottle brush (bottom right) hanging in profuse numbers from their trees, and hillsides of bulging purple Status, which are especially excellent as dried flowers (5th down on right and bottom right).

See Part II of Retina Scorchers here:Rockchaser: Retina Scorchers Part II

One Bad Dog and Two Water Falls

We went out searching for rocks again this Saturday, right after open rock shop hours were over at 1PM. Our goal was to scout for areas around town that might contain fossils. The problem is that recent road and house construction has resulted in most offroad access now being blocked off by many very irritating gates with locks on them. We drove along looking for any dirt road to travel upon, but time after time, we found nothing.

Finally, we left the truck in a parking lot near a river and started walking up stream, picking through large boulders as we went. The landscape was surreal because for a large swath of the river, the surrounding boulders had actually been cemented in place to prevent erosion. The day also started off in a less than savory way because Sesame Pooch found an old dead fish on the bank and decided to roll on top of it. Dogs have the worst taste in perfume! You can see Sesame in the first photo looking smug and happy with herself as usual. But I got my revenge by dunking her into the river a few times to get the smell off. Stinky river smell is still much better than stinky fish smell!

Next we hiked along an old dirt path next to the river and scrambled up a steep hill to investigate the rocks, which were mostly granite plus some basalt. On top of the hill, on a large dead branch, sat a native finch bird. As I trained my camera on him, Sesame Pooch ran up the hill and startled him, and I snapped the picture just as he extended his wings. Score one very nice photo 2!

Going back down the hill, we continued along the river and soon heard a roaring sound, which was surprising. San Diego is supposed to have only one decent water fall in the entire area. This is an often quoted fact amongst local hikers and one that I have always been suspicious of. And sure enough, after hopscotching back and forth over the river on boulders, and clambering through riparian shrubs, we began to hear the telltale roaring sound and shortly found another, apparently not well known, water fall far along some animal paths. It took us some time to find a path across that would not involving wading, but eventually Dave was able to make his way to the top of the falls. That's him on top of the left side fall.

Some of the granite boulders there in the river had strange hoof shaped imprints of half grown black tourmaline. (photo 4) And we found some old pipes, perhaps once used for harvesting water from the river, but little else of interest. (Gratuitous picture of Sesame looking cute on the river, last photo to the right)

As usual, Dave was ready to stay well past the dropping of the sun behind the mountain, and I finally had to prod him to leave before it became too dark to see the rocks in front of our feet. I moved quickly back toward the main road and then searched for Sesame Pooch's leash, only to realize that I must have left it on a rock somewhere. Too late to go back! I cast around for bits of stray rope or string, to no avail, until I finally figured out that the end of a rockhammer stuck under her collar worked well enough as a sort of makeshift leash. Following the river back under the main road, I wanted to make sure she stayed near me and far away from the traffic. The rest of the trip back to the truck was without incident and we now know of one more place in San Diego that does not have fossils!

More Photos From the Nuevo Silica Mine

Here are a few more photos from the Nuevo Silica Quarry that I couldn't quite fit into the original articles but I think are worth posting anyway. One of the most striking things about the mine was the huge tourmaline sprays, but their true size was difficult to properly capture on film. The camera likes to make things look smaller than they really are. In the top photos, you can see several more of the interesting fan shaped patterns that some of the tourmalines formed in the host rock.

The photo to the right captures Sesame Pooch observing one of the areas were the tourmalines looked like splattered and dribbled black paint. The bottom left photo shows some of the water clear quartz and black tourmaline pieces that I took home with me (click the photo for a larger view).

There was also one nice piece of smokey quartz, but I actually didn't spend much time collecting as I was so busy exploring and taking pictures.

The first part of the story, In Search of the Nuevo Silica Mine, is here. The second part of the story, Finding the Nuevo Silica Mine, is here.

Finding the Nuevo Silica Mine

The next day dawned cool and crystal clear, the lingering rains now swept away by a perfect day. We started well before lunch with Dave sporting more research on the location and a much better photo from Google Earth. His plan? He wanted to try coming at the mine from a whole 'nother direction, this time further North. He had seen the mine on Google Earth and felt we had been close to it the day before, but that there looked to be better roads coming in from the other side. So we drove along another paved road for a long time and then by chance, spotted an offroad vehicle turning off the main road in front of us. In a split second, Dave decided to veer and follow. We had no idea where this dirt road would lead but it was going in the right general direction.

The area turned out to be an offroad mecca, with substantial moguls and side roads built up in many places. We crawled along for some time, attempting to head towards the power lines ahead, which Dave knew from Google Earth were near the mine. At one location, gold colored mica was so thick on top of the road that the road literally looked clad in gold. I tried to take a picture of it but unfortunately, the camera could not properly process the gold color and the picture only appeared to show a shiny wet road.

At several places, recent heavy rains had substantially eroded the road, and at one point, just inches from high centering, we had to stop and fill in some of the ruts before moving on. In the first photo, you can see Dave, who was supposed to be filling in the last part of the rut, as he gets distracted by a pretty rock and has stopped to inspect it. I guess you just can't keep a rockhound away from the rocks! Just before that, I had been collecting large rocks to throw into the ruts, when I unknowingly grabbed a rock that was covered in fire ants underneath. Cluelessly carrying it along, it was not until I reached the ruts that all the ants collected on my hand simultaneously bit me. How they can synchronize like that is beyond me! The lesson for me is to pay more attention to my environment.

Eventually, we were on our way again only to stop again shortly to follow a long skinny strip of pegmatite banding. Again, we saw white quartz with pinkish feldspar. I walked for at least a half hour, following the white lines, but not finding anything quite worthy enough to become excited about. But I couldn't quite get myself to stop following those amazingly straight lines in the ground! Any minute, the pegmatite might improve and I might find some garnet or tourmaline! Or so I kept telling myself as I walked until finally running out of white lines and returning to the truck. While I was gone, Dave had spent some time digging into the dyke closer to the truck, but he also had founding nothing of interest, just some tiny ends of what he called 'red tourmaline' but what I thought were probably tiny dark red garnets squished into the host rock. [Edited to add: Looks like these may in fact really be zircon] We continued on, choosing roads, and then sometimes backtracking and unchoosing those same roads, but always mostly heading towards the power lines.

Until finally up ahead, we saw chunks of broken ice lining the road. Or was that actually quartz!?! (see 2nd photo closeup) I was so eager, I jumped out of the truck before Dave even had time to park. I could see hoards of white and clear quartz and even the occasional black tourmaline interspersed between. We knew we had to be near to something because where had all these broken chunks of rock come from? They were clearly tailings, and just up ahead, Dave saw the entrance to the quarry (3rd photo), well hidden until you were right on top of it, a cut out area beyond which was a short but steep trail into the open mine pit below. We had found Nuevo Silica mine!

At the top of the quarry, long black veins of compressed mica ran along the walls. But the most striking part were the huge black tourmalines embedded lower down in the mine, directly in the rock walls, many of them as big as my arms (4th photo, note the rockhammer for perspective, and 5th photo). More pressure lower in the mine had grown tourmalines instead of mica veins. The tourmalines made a variety of shapes in the walls including parallel lines, fans, bullet like blobs formed from an end on view, and even in some places, meandering lines as if black paint had been splashed against the walls. The walls were steep and in many places, deep pockets had been dug into the walls, but Sesame Pooch easily danced up the sides using tiny footholds that only a dog could find. In a corner of the mine, Sesame also found a small 'short cut' tunnel that also led out of the mine (6th photo just above) We spent considerable time investigating and collecting bits of black tourmaline, until Dave found another hole in the ground further away.

This time, the hole was a horizontal tunnel instead of an open pit. Sesame was the first to inspect the mine entrance in the 7th photo (to the right). We speculated the goal of this mine may have been gold instead of silica. The tunnel disappeared far into the Earth, but water dripped from the ceiling, the floor of the tunnel was heavily flooded and even the entrance was incredibly slippery. (8th photo just below/left)

We contemplated wading further in, as the water did not appear high, but on thinking about it, we realized the murky grey water could have hidden a vertical shaft or any matter of other hazards, making for a potentially dangerous situation. Besides that, neither of us had brought an extra pair of shoes! So we decided sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and moved on. Perhaps later in the spring, when the water table drops. this shaft may become more easily accessible. However, near the entrance to this tunnel, in its tailings, we did find the most clear of all the quartz pieces we found that day, many of them, although not large, were water clear and suitable for faceting.

After more collecting, we headed out along more off road moguls and bumps back towards the main road. Since we still had a little bit of time before absolute dark, Dave, not wanting to waste any of our time up there, decided to go further down the paved road and looked for additional access points, perhaps some that might be less difficult and bumpy. Eventually, after many dead ends, we did find another road that went through, this one much further East. We followed it up directly to the power lines, the ruts here also being difficult in a few places. At the top, we found a thick pegmatite dyke running right under one of the power line foundations! More pinkish feldspar was there to be found. And on we went, our shadows now very long indeed and then next thing we knew, we were crossing another road, this one a very nice new paved one. Where had this one come from!?! We had not seen any paved roads previously but we were still far from the mine.

Whatever the case, we followed it and found it was another road that we had looked for fruitlessly the day before. We even saw pegmatite vein running right through the road! (last and 2nd to last photos) This vein also contained some black tourmaline but all the pieces I saw were locked inside the host rock. But eventually we could barely see, it was so dark, so we headed back down hill to find out where this paved road connected to the roads below. At the end, we found this road was actually blocked by a gate, which is why we had not found it the first time. Google Earth didn't tell us about the gate! ;-P The gate would allow people out so we could leave this night, but getting in would have required the password or a clicker code, neither of which we had. Anyway, it was dark now, so the rest of that road and its side roads will have to be an adventure for another time. But we found our mine and we found an heretofore unknown and ungated path to that mine. We found a prodigious supply of black tourmaline and water clear quartz and we avoided getting seriously stuck numerous times, so not bad for a day's work!

{You can see part one of this adventure here: Rockchaser: In search of The Nuevo Silica Mine}
For additional pictures of the mine, click here.