This was a special invitation to rockhound for garnets in South Carolina for American Geode to explore the private property of a collector and rockhound who owned acres of forest land, some cleared, in Seneca, South Carolina. This had been relatively unworked, so almost virgin land for rockhounding, which is very exciting and a rare opportunity. The owner of the property, a serious collector as well with excellent taste claimed to have found epidote, garnet, quartz (in its various forms), arrowheads, actinolite, hematite, magnetite, and other iron minerals.
Wow! Was this area full if iron, aka Rust! These kinds of rockhound excursions are most fun for American Geode because so many gem and mineral sites are exhausted and over-mined, or seeded if they are commercial, but this gentleman just wanted some semi-professionals to look over the land and see what they find. There is never enough time!
We did find plenty of garnets, when we found the right veins. We saw a tree that was uprooted and that is always a good place to hunt as you are already at least one foot below the surface. That was how we were able to recognize the edge of a vein that we uncovered and chipped at for the garnets. See the photos of the kinds of areas we were digging around. We needed all our shovels, pick axes, rock hammers, and chisels. These are good looking garnets, not too tiny, but holy moly they are covered in rust.
We will follow up with a video and photos of the garnets when we get them cleaned, hopefully without using acid! We used to use a stone cleaner called Mex, and it was awesome and it was safe! Sadly it was discontinued for some reason, but this stone cleaner was excellent at removing rust and oxidation from your rocks and stones: https://x.com/AmericanGeode/status/716694283089264641
Until then, please enjoy all our rockhounding stories and tips, tricks, and advice, and contact us with any questions.
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