I love rocks!
There are lots of mines in Montana- gold, silver, garnet and more. My mom and dad looked into finding a mine for me to tour. Unfortunately, a lot of the tours stopped last week when school started. Luckily for me though, a sapphire mine called Gem Mountain shows kids (and adults) how to mine for sapphires in a workshop in the back of a store all year round (even when the mine tours close).
We drove in a thunderstorm to get to the Gem Mountain store, hoping to get there before it closed. We made it just in time but, seeing as it was closing shortly, there was not enough time to mine for sapphires.
The lady that worked at the store took us to the back and showed us how to wash the stones and search for sapphires. I found 8 sapphires! I learned that sapphires are clear and turn colours depending on which minerals they absorb. Titanium turns them the bright blue that we know.
I got to pick a bag of gravel that came from the mine for mom and dad to buy. We brought it back to the campsite and the next morning set up on the picnic table and started our search. Chelsea, Nathan and I all found more sapphires. We didn't have time to go through the whole bag so we will have to continue our search when get back home!
Parker's sapphire-mining tools
Ready to search!
Deep focus resulting in success
There are lots of mines in Montana- gold, silver, garnet and more. My mom and dad looked into finding a mine for me to tour. Unfortunately, a lot of the tours stopped last week when school started. Luckily for me though, a sapphire mine called Gem Mountain shows kids (and adults) how to mine for sapphires in a workshop in the back of a store all year round (even when the mine tours close).
We drove in a thunderstorm to get to the Gem Mountain store, hoping to get there before it closed. We made it just in time but, seeing as it was closing shortly, there was not enough time to mine for sapphires.
The lady that worked at the store took us to the back and showed us how to wash the stones and search for sapphires. I found 8 sapphires! I learned that sapphires are clear and turn colours depending on which minerals they absorb. Titanium turns them the bright blue that we know.
I got to pick a bag of gravel that came from the mine for mom and dad to buy. We brought it back to the campsite and the next morning set up on the picnic table and started our search. Chelsea, Nathan and I all found more sapphires. We didn't have time to go through the whole bag so we will have to continue our search when get back home!
Comments
Post a Comment