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Table of Contents

Updated 6th edition with new sites & museums!

Learn Where & How to Dig, Pan and Mine Your Own Gems & Minerals

SOUTHEAST

Alabama • Arkansas • Florida • Georgia • Kentucky • Louisiana • Mississippi • Missouri • North Carolina • South Carolina • Tennessee • Virginia • West Virginia

Whether you're digging for the first time or are an experienced rockhound or "prospector," with a simple rock hammer and a little luck, you too can strike it rich ... or at the very least, have fun trying.

This guide offers you easy-to-use information on the ins and outs of "fee dig" mining, complete with locations, costs, tips on technique, entertaining legends and important information on everything from safety kits to the location of the nearest restrooms.

Included are resources for use in identifying your finds, exploring the lapidary arts, and further pursuing an exciting--and possibly profitable--hobby.

• Equipment and Clothing: What you need and where to find it (or how to make it yourself).
• Mining Techniques: Step-by-step instructions on panning for gold, sluicing for gems and other methods.
• Gem and Mineral Sites: Directions and maps, hours, fees and equipment needed. Also includes info on guide services, local camping facilities and more.
• Museums and Mine Tours: Where to visit commercial and historical mines, as well as museums with exhibits of gems and minerals (for help in learning what to look for).
• Special Events and Tourist Information: Listings of regional events involving gems and minerals, and sources of general travel and tourism information for every state.
• Other Features: Where to find your birthstone, your anniversary stone or your zodiac stone; Index by State; Index by Gem/Mineral; U.S. State Gems & Minerals Chart; and more!

A guidebook for traveling rockhounds or anyone with an interest in gems, rocks or minerals exploring hidden treasures across the United States. Easy-t...

Whether you are an experienced rockhound or "prospector," or just digging for the first time, with a simple rock hammer and a little luck, you too can...

Mica is a broad term encompassing about forty minerals, ranging from the common to the rare, many at times forming excellent crystals jewelers use. Th...

Over 90 striking color photos display minerals of the epidote group, well known to mineral collectors for their rich colors and the many interesting m...

Among rock-forming minerals, the vesuvianite group is best known through the many colorful crystals collected at the Jeffrey quarry, in Asbestos, Cana...

The axinite group of rock-formed minerals is well known to collectors through the spectacularly sharp crystals collected in quantity at Dal'negorsk an...

Garnet, with its many color varieties, is a favorite of both mineral collectors and gemologists. Superb examples are found at many locales worldwide, ...

Over 100 vivid color photographs of beautiful feldspar minerals show each species in its geological context. The feldspar minerals, as a group, make u...

Quartz is prized by both mineral collectors and lapidary artists. Over 130 vivid photographs of these beautiful minerals are presented to show each mi...

Continuing a tradition that began in 1842, this book examines 24 localities of particular interest to mineral collectors. These localities are organiz...

Mississippian Age crinoids from Crawfordsville, Indiana, are known worldwide for their completeness, abundance, large size, and extraordinary aesthetic appeal.

Among rock-forming minerals, the zeolite group is large and widespread, and is enormously important to industry. Zeolites form excellent crystals. The...

This is the first published guide to Herkimer diamonds, striking quartz crystals, that includes all important aspects of interest to anyone curious ab...

The amphibole group is extremely important, widespread, and beautiful, with a structure that can accommodate a bewildering variety of compositions and...

A great guidebook featuring full-color photos of hundreds of rocks and gems for collectors and enthusiasts, created in collaboration with the Smithson...

This valuable book provides information on fossils, fossil collecting, and price ranges for most specimens illustrated. The comprehensive text begins ...

In recent years, minerals and gems have enjoyed growing renown and popularity. At this time there are some 3,800 different minerals known from all par...

Collectors have long admired uranium and thorium minerals for their brilliant colors, intense ultraviolet fluorescence, and rich variety of habits and...

Explore the rich fossil record of the Paleozoic Era, from the Cambrian (545 million years ago) through the Permian (almost 300 million years ago) with...

The detailed text provides a wonderful overview of the range of Mesozoic period fossils by period found around the glob

Over 500 photos and engaging text reveal the fossils of the Cretaceous Period, the last period of the Mesozoic Era.

Seeing fluorescent minerals up close for the first time is an exciting experience. The colors are so pure and the glow is so seemingly unnatural, that...

In this second book on Paleozoic fossils, over 840 all new specimens from this period are provided, organized by biologic (taxonomic) position. It is ...

This book is the perfect guide for those wanting to learn about Precambrian era fossils, rocks and minerals. 659 color photos are included.

Over 670 color photos reveal the Paleozoic plants that covered the earth from 500 to 260 million years ago, well before the dinosaurs roamed the world.

The Ozarks highland region of the Midwest, located in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, contains beautiful mineral specimens for those with sha...

A colorful look at 3.5 billion years of stromatolites, peculiar structures produced by primitive life forms that lived over vast spans of geologic tim...

In the pre-plastic era everything was made from natural materials, often by skilled craftsmen. The materials that they used are now often rare and eas...

The definitive resource for mineral collectors, this comprehensive book describes the structural relationships among orthosilicateminerals, known for ...