Before and between shifts I sort the concentrates from the field trips, a million possibilities. The two locations in SE Ab, very different rocks, the one site yields perhaps a handful of concentrates, the other, easily 4, the second location too proves infinitely richer in possibilities, more of the clearer stones that might be, more garnets, each location has the fish scales (There's actually a fish scale horizon in AB, artifact of the several meteorite impacts/extinctions).
Looking at these stones, through a LED powered 20X loop, there's an infinitude of possibilities, it's a kaleidoscope, madness, this, trying to tweeze out all the diamond-maybe's and maybe-nots, a big stone a mm wide, shards and splinters of garnet, it's a sort of zen relaxation, but uneconomical (and messy), in the end I'll find some vaseline, try and pan them over it, perhaps try sorting them with a vibrating table, soak them in the acid, there's all sorts of possibilities here, Ballas diamonds (from the meteorites), macles, bort diamonds, miss nothing, a stray shotgun pellet, vivid flashes of pale pink and deep red, occasional green chromites, amazing how the gravels change over short distances...
I'd buy a USB microscope, love to show you, maybe you'd understand what I was up against, but having to deal again with Canada Post is one more obstacle than I need. Maybe when all the mail's in...
And in the 10 days since the last trip I've sorted them plenty enough, time to start planning another, there's only a few weeks of autumn left, and still hundreds, thousands of places left to check...