GMS Field Trip

GMS Field Trip
Lace Banded Agate/Chert in Georgia
Saturday, March 15, 2015

A week of rain threatened to turn the March field trip into a muddy mess, but instead it made the beautiful agate much easier to find! The trip had a huge turnout and everyone was rewarded with some stunning pieces.

Because of the mushy conditions, we worked from one side of the site to the other as a group, rather than spreading out across the collecting area. By doing so, we were able to see the pretty agate before it was covered up by our own footsteps.

Many, many small pieces were collected for grab bags. The test I used for grab bag collecting was asking myself, “If I were my younger self and I got a grab bag with this in it, would I be happy?” Well, that day for almost everything I picked up the answer would be an enthusiastic “Yes!”

Within a couple of hours, everyone was loaded up with agate, so we took a break for lunch, then reconvened in Doug Hawkins’ driveway where we shopped for beautiful cutting rough and slabs at incredibly low prices. Mark and Carmen Tolbert cleaned up on the 50 cent per pound slab pile!

We must give a big thank you to the owners of the collecting site for allowing us this fantastic opportunity to collect so much pretty agate as well as GMS member Doug Hawkins for letting us dig around his beautiful material! And, of course, thank you to field trip chair Charles Carter for setting up such a fun trip!

Lori Carter
On behalf of Charles Carter, GMS Field Trip Chair
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