Category: Field trip

4 members went on the field trip to the Burnt Bridge area of the Koksilah river near Shawnigan. This is an area to find double-headed quartz crystals tubeworm fossils.

“What you are looking for are silicate rich sandstones that have been trapped between the fault lines skipping across the far side of the river; unlike the Duncan variety of crystals these are in hard rock and will need to be dug out. Also you can find marble, and fossils in the creek.

The 4 of us had a great time, and found some great samples.” – Sean Maier

The group met at Ice Cream Mountain in Goldstream and the trip lasted from 9am to 3:30pm

Several members joined the field trip to Muir Creek in Sooke. On the land side of the road there’s some panable gold dust – see the mineral inventory page on Minfile. On the beach side of the road they looked for bivalve and other fossils.

The group met at the Juan de Fuca Recreation centre at 9:30am and the trip ended at 3pm.

6 people joined the field trip to an old mine site called the Ralph Mine behind the Goldstream Campsite. The hike involved a a fairly rigorous climb up a hillside to a gated mine shaft. It isn’t possible to enter the mine, but in the area they found clinozoisite (a cousin of epidote and tanzanite), bornite (peacock ore) and some malachite.

The meeting place was at the Ice Cream Mountain ice-cream shop at 10 am. See map link below

The field trip to Island View Beach was very well attended – Gilles counted 18 participants. I think everyone had found some great treasures, and the weather and tides cooperated for us! Very enjoyable field trip. – Rob de Lange

Was a terrific day. Found several flower stones-gave a couple away- and had Bill carry out a thirty pounder or more Dallasite! What a great find! Bill and I stayed for a couple more hours after everone else left. The tide went really low, exposing lots more beach to walk! Can’t wait for the next field trip! – Karen Randall

Click on the photos to see bigger images as a slideshow.

 

 

As we arrived at the panning place, Gilles had to meet and calm the two Rhodesian ridgeback dogs before we could continue. The campers who belonged to the dogs mentioned that they had had a very interesting night with the transit of two elk and a black bear down the creek bed where we were panning. There was no sign of any wildlife the day we were there, so we were safe as we panned the gravel to find….. smaller gravel. Continue reading “Gold panning trip to Meades Creek (25th Sept, 2017)”