David Tibbits has been awarded a grant from the Geological Society (UK). His project, titled “Herkimer Diamond Drilling Expedition: Unraveling the Origin of New York’s ‘Herkimer Diamond’ Quartz Crystals,” will receive funding to support analytical expenses, drilling equipment, and travel to the field site. Read more about David's project below!
The goal of the project is to recover drill core through the entire Little Falls Dolostone at Treasure Mountain Diamond Mine in Little Falls, NY in order to understand the formation of the host rock, and therefore the formation conditions of the world-famous quartz crystals found within. This will recover 400-500 feet of core using a handheld coring drill and an offset coring method. No one has a definite answer on how or when these crystals formed, but given all the modern analytical tools available to us at Rutgers, and through our collaborators, we should be able to get a great answer in the near future.
Figure 1. The diversity of Herkimer Diamond quartz crystals. a. A typical Herkimer Diamond from Treasure Mountain Diamond Mine. 2.5cm. Tama Higuchi Collection and Photo. b. Large skeletal crystal from the Herkimer Mountain Mine. >20cm in size. c. Scepter crystal from Treasure Mountain Diamond Mine. 2.5cm. Internal stem is included with anthraxolite, external bulb is free of anthraxolite. Michael Walter Photo. d. Herkimer Diamond with discrete inclusion of anthraxolite from Treasure Mountain Diamond Mine. 2.2cm. Collected by the PI. e. Large Herkimer Diamond with disseminated organic carbon inclusions - which create the smoky color – from the Treasure Mountain Diamond Mine. Alex Hudak Collection.
All of the various styles of quartz growth, and the organic inclusions suggest an evolving mineralizing landscape, one which we hope to elucidate and share with the public which already loves these beautiful crystals.
In the broader scope of things, grants like these facilitate the bringing together of multiple interested parties, including mine owners, mineral collectors, authors, professional geologists, and academics. This community has been developing for a while now, for around the past 8 months or so we have been having bi-weekly meetings brainstorming and planning the upcoming fieldwork and labwork.