Rockhounding Fun in Montana

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The Stonedog's Mercantile


Scratchgravel Hills Vesuvianite and Blue Calcite

The The Scratchgravel Hills are home to many prospects and explorations for mineral. This very-easy-to-miss site is very-hard-to-find when your only directions are to, "Take the Helena landfill road!" Well, the Helena landfill was moved decades ago, and...you guessed it, no signs telling you even where it used to be!

After finally finding the collecting site, it became clear that care had to be taken, both in parking the vehicle, and in working the site. Whether a train uses these rails once an hour or once a month, alway be alert - the train will win every time.

The cut in which the skarn is exposed is so minor in appearance as to barely qualify as a cut. Once you have extracted some massive greeen vesuvianite, you need to look for pockets of blue calcite. If you carefully etch out the calcite with hydrochloric acid, you may find small vesuvianite crystals.


From time-to-time, new location cards will be added to this list, so you may want to check back often.



Whitefish, Montana 59937-3128
Email jericho@cyberport.net
© Copyright 2013 Jerry Hanson/Akinesahtl