Anybody Know Their Crystals?

[tvanwho]

Years ago, I accidentally was in the right place at the right time for a change. What caught my eye at the time, was a puddle of dark blue light about 2 x 2 feet emanating from  the base of a rock formation just above the east branch of the Swift river in NW Maine where I was gold panning. The glow was coming from under part of the rock pile. When I got down on my knees and looked to see in the cavity, I saw a dark blue translucent crystal shaped like the Washington Monument in DC, sharp point on top.,long as my index finger. It was flawless, no cracks and gem quality I am sure. It was sticking out of an olive green colored bedrock, a single crystal. The sunlight was hitting it late in the day somehow, despite a 4 foot tall creek bank and the sun was setting.

I was gonna break it off and take my treasure but got into a fight with myself. One side of me said that is a bonafide treasure and you found it, take it!!  The other side said that God put it there and I had no right to take it. I just could not break it off in the end. Unfortunately, that was in the dark ages of microelectronics and brick size cell phones. I had no camera with me of any kind that day. I shoulda tore off my T shirt and stuck in the trees nearby as I soon discovered the next few days, it was impossible to retrace my steps with rock breaking tools in hand.

  So, can somebody tell me what the crystal was? I was told blue tourmaline but all those crystals are flat on top and a bluish green and downright ugly if you ask me. I can only find blue quartz crystals with a sharp point on top but they appear to be lab treated, not natural.

Now, I know people will make fun of me for what happened next, but I will relate part 2 of my story here. A few years ago, I went back to the area to search for my blue crystal again before I got too decrepit in my old age.  I lined up permissions as the area was now private land. I brought a 5 foot steel bar with me and 40 pounds of rock chisels, hammers, camera, even a cordless grinder with cutoff wheel. I searched the area all day and I found a few bits of mining junk I remembered seeing all those years ago so maybe I was in the right area?  So, I was getting exhausted and stood by the creek with its whitewater raging there. All of a sudden, a voice told me I was VERY close to the crystal location. I turned around and directly behind me was a very short woman and a snarling yellow labrador dog, just out of nowheres. The woman was dressed for the beach, not for a hike in the woods, very odd. She asked me my name , then asked what was I searching for !!!!  Heck, is she guarding my blue crystal I thought? Wish I had asked her if I could have the crystal this time  and could she guide me to it?

 

I got defensive and changed the subject, told her I was lost , could not find the trail back to my car . so, she turns and points and I took my eyes off her and looked up the hill where she was pointing and saw the path , but when I looked back to continue our conversation, both the woman and her mean dog had vanished into thin air !!!  What the heck, was I talking to a ghost this whole time !!! Just like talking to a real person, not a shadowy figure at all. Unfortunately my camera was in the bottom of my knapsack and everytime I so much as tried to move, that dog acted like it was gonna tear me to pieces. I got to thinking afterwards, neither the woman or her dog ever took a step and the dog never even barked, just growled and stared at me.

I am missing my blue crystal yet again and yet again I cannot find any such crystal at online rock and gem shops, or Ebay or locally. I may have to go back to Maine a 3rd time now.

I better quit rambling here. 

-Tom V.

[chrisski]

A sketch of the crystal will help.

Maine is known for gems, and tourmaline, but I can’t confirm if it’s blue tourmaline or not.  My father went to a paid blast where in Maine they scoured the area after the blast.  They looked at the site before the blast and after.  He took out some specimens, don’t know what.

[Bob S.]

I'm not a crystal expert, but I'd say you had a very rare dark blue quartz obelisk. Enjoyed the accompanying story too! 

[rvpopeye]

This may help you with an ID but you're on your own with the crystal's guardians...🥸

https://mainemineralmuseum.org/discover/minerals/

[Geologyhound]

Maine also produces aquamarine and topaz.  Both can come in varying shades of blue and form an elongated crystal with a pointed termination.  However a pointed termination is rarer for aquamarine.

As earlier posters have commented, Maine also produces tourmaline and quartz.  While Maine may be more famous for tourmaline, a pointed termination would not be expected.  If it is quartz, and you can find it, please be warned that one of the ways of making quartz blue is inclusions of an asbestos mineral known as crocidolite.  A dust mask may be a wise precaution.

[tvanwho]

thanks for the tips, I did see a similar crystal in a rock shop in New Hampshire at the time for $400, back 20 years ago when I made this find. Too bad I was poor at the time. Has anybody else had ghost encounters besides me? My former IT boss told me that he and his brother were out in the middle of a huge athletic field, just the  2 of them, when an old man with white beard suddenly showed up out of nowheres  .He was babbling but not coherent and disappeared into thin air .

[tvanwho]

Ps, if I do go back to Maine and am lucky enough to find the rock formation the crystal was under, should I bring a rock chisel and hammer or cordless grinder with fiber cutoff wheel or ? for breaking into the olive green bedrock? I am assuming there might be a crystal VUG cavity under the crystal location? And back in the dark ages when I had a Teknetics Mark 1 metal detector, I got a loud signal over a white quartz vein in the East Branch of the Swift river but in 2 feet of water.I did not know what to do, so left it be. That area is known for gold nuggets. Dunno about lode gold in quartz tho?

[tvanwho]

defintely not the asbestos blue