Digging for Quartz Crystals in Arkansas
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Mining for Crystals was a Great Holiday!
Digging (or mining) for crystals was a favorite holiday of mine growing up. I lived on a small farm in Missouri near the boarder with Arkansas. If we had a long weekend or were just in need of a break we would holiday in Arkansas. Arkansas really is a fantastic place to holiday, it is a bit of a secret treasure in terms of holiday-ing.
As you may be able to guess Arkansas has many lovely hot springs, hence the name of their most well known city 'Hot Springs'. Odd coincidence that! Well if you know about geology and the history of the planet then you know that hot springs often indicate an area that is or was recently geologically speaking very active.
The hot springs are just one byproduct of geothermal activity. Geothermal activity has another byproduct, and that is the formation of crystals (diamonds too but good luck finding lots of them LOL).
Quarts crystals can be found in Arkansas, and in some areas these crystals are in real abundance. My mom and I visited areas where all we had to do was scoop up some dirt in our hands and we would have a few crystal shards or small crystals in our hands. With so many quarts crystals in abundance our goal was to dig up the best ones! My mom found one single crystal point larger then her fist, while I found a huge rock completely covered in crystals. I think my mom still uses that rock I found to help line the path in her garden.
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Good Crystal Hunting Tips
The biggest tip I can share in finding a good spot to hunt for some wow factor crystals is actually pretty simple. This is exactly what we did, we went into a crystal shop on our way down to the city of Hot Springs and simply asked where we might be able to look and find some great crystals free. It really was as simple as that!
We tried official 'dig your own' sites that charged for entry, and usually found the crystals were already mined and so were thin on the ground so to speak. The free spots we were directed to by the shops were far and away more fun to hunt for crystals! I don't know if the shops saw me as a kid and knew that a kid would have a better time where the crystals are literally everywhere and so offered the best advice but I like to think that was it.
You can probably find official places online to visit and dig for your own crystals online and that is perfectly fine, it should give you a sense of direction as to where to visit exactly. I would just recommend that you leave lots of time for exploring the unpublicized areas and do not be afraid to ask at that local shops!
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Interesting Facts about Crystals
I decided to have a look around the net to remind me of the areas we would visit for crystal digging, and basically to see what information is already out there. I actually learned a very interesting fact about the crystals you find in Arkansas.
I did not know this when I was a kid digging for crystals but it turns out that Arkansas has some of the best quality quarts crystals in the world, along side Brazil. I find it amazing to think that I was living so close to an area that is world renowned for its crystals in geological circles. If asked where to find the best quality crystals I would have guessed Brazil not Arkansas, yet I can say the crystals we found were of a quality that sells in shops for serious money! If you are a rock hound and want to go prospecting for crystals just had to Hot Springs or Mount Ida to find abundant quartz deposits around the Ouachita Mountain area.
The quarts crystals that you might find can range from clear almost completely flawless ones to ones with flaws that create colors within the crystal itself. Highly colored crystals are probably just as rare as completely flawless ones but whatever sort you find you should find something to prize and treasure!
I hope that you have enjoyed this hub and I would welcome any comments you may have. Please feel free to post any interesting facts on crystals that you know of!
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Interesting post. I read it to the end. I wear crystals often, especially amethyst and rose quartz,and use them for meditation and dowsing. If you take a reading on the chakras in the energy body with a crystal pendulum, there is a big difference before and after practicing yoga.
Deerwhisperer - Thanks for the comment and wow, you lucky duck you! I miss the outdoors of Missouri and Arkansas. The other really amazing thing we used to do when living round them parts was to explore all the caves. I am in London UK now and 'seeing the world' but I do miss farm and outdoors sometimes.
Janis Goad - Thanks for your comment, I don't use crystals for yoga or anything else like that. I just think they are pretty! I am glad to hear how you use them as I might want to try it out sometime and even see if you have any hubs on the subject for further learning.
I haven't explored many caves (only two that I can remember, one in Arizona and one in Tennessee) but I do think they are awesome. However, there are a couple of other activities I enjoyed in Arkansas and now here in Michigan. They are arrowhead and fossil hunting. However, we haven't found many arrowheads here in Michigan, but we still find a lot of fossils and rocks such as the Petoskey Stone (of which Michigan is famous for).
Deerwhisperer - Man I am having happy flash backs now! My dad used to check out caves to make sure they where safe for us every year to explore. We used to go arrowhead hunting as well, a friend of mine found a nice one (mom used to find them in the garden often, so she was less impressed lol). I have also done fossil hunting here in the UK, the southern coast is sometimes called the Jurassic coast as the fossils found age the further along the beach you go. Dinosaur bones have been found, I found a number of belemnite fossils. I am now thinking I should do another hub! Finding fossils the week before Christmas (that is when we went hunting so as to stand a good chance of finding them eroded from the cliffs before anyone else)
We live in what is called the "Michigan Basin", which was once covered by glacial ice that was perhaps thousands of feet deep and as the ice moved, thawed, and refroze it left behind what is called Moraines, which look like rounded hills jutting up throughout the landscape. But these are actually huge deposits of glacial and volcanic debri, making Michigan a fossil hunters paradise.
Elestial quartz crystals can be used to assist one in overcoming burdens, to bring the heart and the intellect into synchronicity, and stimulate the actualization of the conscious self. Elestial quartz is one of the “enchanted crystals” and can be used to sustain and maintain a person during changes in their life.
Deerwhisperer - I think I know exactly the area you are talking about. They do a number of documentaries in this country about fossils and often show Michigan and Montana (I think) as being great spots to dig fossils. The other thing I have heard is that there is some debate about collecting fossils, that folks keep and sell them without showing them to the scientific community so discoveries might be missed. I understand where they are coming from but on the other hand, fossil hunting is lots of fun. :D
I haven't heard anything about that, but then I'm not interested in selling mine. I collect and study them, and some day I would like to publish my results (on HubPages perhaps?). However, there is a museum here that will identify your specimens for free, however, if you have one that is not in their collection, they will ask you to donate it to the museum.
Deerwhisperer - If you do write a hub you know I will want to read it! I would LOVE to find something of museum quality and would be happy to donate if I got to see my name on it, found and discovered by.... how cool that would be!
Deerwhisperer Level 1 Commenter 16 months ago
You don't really need to find a place to dig for chrystals in Arkansas. All you really need to do is walk out in any open field and poke around to find them, although many of them are quite small. I lived in Walnut Ridge Arkansas (that's in the Northeast) for many years,was born in Newport, my daughter attended ASMS in Hot Springs, and we camped in Missouri for seven months, so who knows, we might have actually met at some time. Howdy Neighbor!