Sapphire Bend, Oberon NSW

[Lefty]

Iron saturated quartz crystal?

 

[Chiron52]

I've heard that same argument Lefty.
I'm not much of a geologist (though I sometimes wish I was), so I don't know the truth about that.

Iron saturated quartz crystal?

Don't know for sure but your probably right.
Double terminated with a tiny little crystal growing out the side. :Y:
Cheers.

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, it's just one of many theories. Jim is onemmof the major miners out there and started mining in the 80's. He has seen a lot of different sapphire - bearing ground and has had geologists working for him.

It seems to make sense that different volcanic vents around a field may have produced their own slightly unique stones. I don't think a sapphires colour affects it's SG enough to cause certain colours to congregate in certain areas.

 

[Chiron52]

I'm planning to visit the area sometime in the next couple of months.
I have a few places in mind I would like to test out.
Not sure yet if private properties or not.
There must be some good spots around there somewhere that are easier to dig than Sapphire Bend.
Oh, I have pulled quite a few large round boulders out of the ground at SB over the years.
But there doesn't seem to be any reason for their location. That is, not in an obvious old creek bed situation.
Unless it has something to do with them being disturbed by 'dozers pulling out tree stumps. :lol:
Cheers.

 

[Gilly47]

I was diggin at Glenalva recently( last week) and one spot i frequented was wall to wall fist size billys, one dig not far from me was about 4ft deep and all billys. There was some thin wash that was grey/ whitish. no happy ending in that area for me though.

Heading back to Glenalva tomorrow with some handyman equipment I have made to help with the removal of the cement like material that surrounds the gravel pieces. the grey stuff goes like glue in water

ray

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, it's not easy going at Glenalva! Ground like a concrete slab in places.

We found what looked like a seam of wash identical to the productive stuff at Russian gully but only got a couple of bombs and a few tiny zircons from it. Was on the western side of Pacey's ridge from memory.

 

[Nicko98]

As far as Im aware, the billy boulders at sapphire bend are just water worn boulders of either granite or basalt - leaning towards basalt, that lie in the wash layer. They vary quite a bit In size, ranging from the size of your fist to boulders the diameter of a car Tyre.
Ive found sapphires on the surface of the ground and all through the wash, from just below the dirt overburden to the clay base.
My first few bits of blue came from looking through others quarter inch sieve tailings at the wash dam.

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, Anakie field billy boulders are quite distinctive and are not made of weatherd granite or basalt. All the ones I know are composed of quartzite. I think one theory is that tney were originally a bed of sedimentary rock that was first baked and then blasted into billions of fragments as close to a hundred individual volcanic vents punched through the surface of the area, strewing the bolders about the place.

The old bloke on the claim next to ours years ago used to heat small ones up in the fire, wrap them in hessian and put them in his bed 10 minutes before bed time in winter as hot water bottles.

 

[Heatho]

Plenty of Billy's in the New England gemfields mate. Sure I've seen them at Sapphire Bend as well.

Oh ok - a couple of people have told me they don't get them there.

Are we talking about the same thing? What we refer to as "billy boulders" up here are a very specific rock - they are hard and composed of quartzite and more often than not posses an unusual shape and smooth, almost polished surface appearance that has previously been described as "water-worn" but having seen countless numbers of them, I have to agree with Jim Elliot's argument that they are in fact heat-glazed. At least the surface looks that way.

They vary in size from small things the size of a fist, through to basketball size, through drum size and occasionally as big as a car bonnet or bigger. I had a 44-gallon drum sized one in my hole on our ill-fated claim at Reward, was a real pain to get out of the hole!

They are often taken as a sign of the potential of sapphire-bearing wash as they often seem to accompany the stones, many believe this is a sign that they were ejected from the volcanic vents along with the sapphires, black spinel etc.

They actually make a handy bush building material and there are plenty of miners huts and houses on the field that use them as such. The Rubyvale gem gallery was originally built from them.

Hey Lefty, Bill who owns Billabong Blue and many others there have always called them Billy Boulders, so I'm assuming they must be mate. They are very white with black bits, very rounded. Maybe they are not the same rock as the CQ gemfields though and the miners at Inverell just call them billy boulders.

I actually thought the ones around Inverell were granodiorite, I could be totally wrong too.

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, it might be just a generic name for round boulders found on Australian sapphire fields, regardless of different rock types between different areas - got a very Aussie - sounding name

I have photos of them but they are old and must be in a format that won't upload to this forum any more. They always used to but now only more recently taken ones will.

There are some really big ones around, one standing in front of the Blue Gem caravan park office in Sapphire and another making up part of a wall and fireplace base in the Rubyvale pub. The really big ones oftrn have the same glazed appearence but look to have been part of a "slab" of rock.

Cheers

 

[Conan]

Its interesting that the sign posted fossicking area at Sapphire Bend is about .5sq kilometer in size, but the actual area that sapphires are being found in the Vulcan is at least 3.5sq kilometres. And probably more. The previous mining leases were small in comparison to the area and test holes limited so based on this there must be a lot of virgin ground that has been missed. The problem is finding it. It all makes for a great adventure to find them. It's a pity the Black Springs shop has closed as this was a great supplies base and their burgers were very tasty. I'll be back out there hopefully in a few weeks so will take more photo's and post my findings. :Y:

 

[Chiron52]

It's a pity the Black Springs shop has closed as this was a great supplies base and their burgers were very tasty. :Y:

The shop/servo on the corner at Black Springs was real handy if you were camping in the area. They sold fresh meat and veg and almost anything else you could need out in the bush. Long trip now into Oberon for supplies.
Note: There is a pancake shop in Oberon where you can get a stack of fresh cooked pancakes with maple syrup, etc all washed down with a great cup of coffee. :Y: :Y:

 

[Conan]

Hi All

Just being going through the few buckets I brought home and am happy with the results so far. A couple of top sievers which would make anyone happy. The coin in the middle is $2 for size relevance. Both stones are around 4-5 carats.

 

[Conan]

This is a better picture.

 

[Lefty]

Nice colour! :Y:

 

[Heatho]

Nice colour! :Y:

The Black Springs stones usually are an outstanding colour, some of the best in my opinion, mostly they atre pretty small though, but yeah some bigger ones pop up sometimes.

Well done Conan, they are very nice.

 

[Nicko98]

Damn Conan, take me to your spot! My biggest from sapphire bend was just over 6 carat after about 10 trips!

 

[Digginholes]

Well done Conan, great bits of colour.
Were they from on the buckets you took from the big hole?
Would explain why theres been so much work done there

 

[Conan]

Yes from the big hole.

This was my first trip back there in 10 years due to a young family, sport etc. and never having enough time to get out there,it was nice to go back. Ive never dug outside of the fossicking area in 30 years of digging in the forest. This was the first time trying outside the fossicking area and man I wish I had tried there earlier. Better late than never.

 

[Gilly47]

very NOICE colours erfect: