Oregon Sunstones

[Jim in Idaho]

Chris and I got cabin fever in mid April, and decided to head over to a place we'd never been....the open public Sunstone collection area north of Plush, Oregon. The area is 4 square miles of mostly sagebrush. The sunstones are distributed thoughout, and you can find them by just wandering around. You can also dig for them. I did some auger sampling here and there, but we mostly just wandered. We ended up with a considerable pile of faceting material, including a 53.76 carat monster Chris found. I found a half dozen in the 15 carat range, too. Chris' monster has coppery inclusions, too. We didn't find any hard red, or green, however, which are the most desired. This material is Plagioclase Feldspar, and the only area of the world, besides Oregon, that has this material as a clear gem is Ethiopia. A lot of this material has what is called "schiller" in the gem industry. reflections from minute particles of copper, in this case, that makes the stone glisten. You can see the coppery sheen in the one that Chris found, and it's there in several others. Going to make for some interesting faceting next winter when the blizzards rage outside.

Jim

 

[MSC]

Cool, nice finds, never heard of these before. 

[Jim in Idaho]

I've known of them for years. It's been on my trip list for a long time. The gem is the Oregon State gemstone. There is also a "pay" mine there. That deal wasn't open when we were there. Apparently they don't open until May 15th

Jim