googleed3ca5fea536c11e.html South African Mineral Specimens: Searching for Crystals in the Scenic Western Cape Mountains

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A Mineral specimen blog by which we want to share our mineral outings as well as our experiences in the Western Cape mountains.

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http://www.namibianbrandbergcrystals.com

Friday, August 27, 2010

Searching for Crystals in the Scenic Western Cape Mountains

For a good many years, we have been driving to farms in the mountains, mostly Villiersdorp, Worcester and Ceres, to search for quartz crystals.  Quartz crystals from these areas, are mostly milky to clear, with a few places yielding smoky crystals.  Single crystals rarely exceed 100 mm, while most crystals found are smaller than 30 mm.  Some of the small crystals are as bright and gemmy as they come, while some of the smokies are of very high quality.  The crystals are not easy to find and requires a lot of walking, sometimes up steep mountain slopes.  We have discovered some crystal deposits that are very promising, but also very hard to get to.


Some of the places where we dig can be accessed by motorcar on farm land.  We are eternally grateful to generous farm owners, who grant permission to dig for crystals.


About 9 months ago we moved to Ceres, a town situated in the mountains, about 120 km drive from Cape Town.  Ceres is surrounded by mountains and farms and we regularly walk in the mountains, trout fishing or looking for crystals.


When searching for crystals, we firstly search for quartz veins, that are usually snow white.  Once such veins are found, we look for tell-tale sighns of quartz crystals.  More than often there is none, but with persistence, some nice pockets of crystals are discovered.  One such pocket recently yielded about 15 kg of crystals, but most pockets are much smaller and only a small percentage of the crystals are of good quality.  One of the best pockets that we found, was about the size of a man's head, and of very high quality.




My nephew and I digging for crystals on a farm

I found a nice pocket in mid-winter

Riana removes smoky quartz crystals just beneath the surface

Some lovely smokies exposed

A lovely find of (unwashed) crystals from the above pocket

Riana found a lovely smoky

Digging's the name of the game!

Lovely scenery near the place we found crystals

We found a good pocket high up in the mountains

Lovely crystals

A  pretty quartz cluster

Digging for crystals in a remote area

Lovely female quartz crystal

Part of our scenic climb to get to the crystals

Pretty semi-sceptre

A gemmy little crystal group

Pretty crystal on quartz matrix

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you know where there is a erea in ceres where i can find quarts that is public and not a farm

Anonymous said...

Do you know where i can find quarts in a public erea in ceres by the way i love your blogs they are really fun to read

Unknown said...

On what farms can you search in those places without their permision

Pierre Joubert said...

Nowhere! If you want to search on a farm, you need the owner's permission.

Pierre Joubert said...

I'm quite sure that I'd answered the first 2 questions when they came up a few years ago, but my reply seem to have disappeared. So I'll do it again: Wherever there are sandstone mountains, you should be able to find crystals (that includes some Ceres mountains). To help you with searching, you can read my two posts below:

Quartz collecting in Southern Africa:
http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?t=2520

How to find a pocket:
http://www.mineral-forum.com/message-board/viewtopic.php?p=44505#44505

Unknown said...

I found a big, gem in Western Cape Wellington and i hope you can help me with the Id, it has six sides? Weighs 4kg and is about 20cm long.

Pierre Joubert said...

Please visit our website https://www.namibianbrandbergcrystals.com and contact us via our 'Contact Us' page (in the links bar) with your detail, then we'll give you an e-mail address to which you can send a photograph, so we can see if we can recognize the mineral.

Unknown said...

Hello,me and my friend want to go crystal hunting,but we don't know where to start except starting in Ceres.We live in Worcester,and we don't mind walking long distances.Can you help us by pointing places out that are more specific.
We would appreciate your help,thank you.

Unknown said...

I would just like to know if in Imfolozi, you pick up a rock on the sand road ... is it legal to take home or not?

Pierre Joubert said...

If it is in a reserve, no. If on private property, you'll need permission from the owner. If it's public property, it should be okay - there is no law against collecting quartz.

Unknown said...

Who can help me find people who can give me more ifo on my quarts that i pic up and price