Almandine
specimen number:
2262254
location:
Little Pine Garnet Mine, Marshall, Madison Co., North Carolina, USA
description: The Little Pine Garnet Mine, situated near Marshall in Madison County, North Carolina, is a classic eastern American mineral locality celebrated for its remarkably sharp, well-formed crystals of almandine garnet. Geologically, this historic deposit is hosted within highly deformed Precambrian to early Paleozoic metamorphic rocks of the central Blue Ridge province, specifically occurring within thick lenses of a specialized biotite-chlorite schist matrix. Developed during ancient Appalachian mountain-building events roughly 450 million years ago, intense regional metamorphism forced aluminum- and iron-rich sedimentary protoliths to recrystallize, allowing deep red to dark brownish-black almandine garnets to form as distinct dodecahedral and trapezohedral crystals, some reaching several inches in diameter, though many have undergone partial retrogressive alteration into surrounding mica. Historically, the deposit was first exploited as a commercial underground and surface quarrying operation for industrial abrasive garnets between 1904 and 1905, featuring a formal adit driven approximately 150 feet into the hillside. Following a period of inactivity, the property was purchased in 1913 by Logan Ball, whose family initiated decades of intermittent small-scale extraction for gem-quality rough and collector specimens through the early 1950s, even drawing exploration interest from major luxury firms like Tiffany and Company. The site transitioned permanently into a private, fee-to-dig tourist and rockhound destination in 1961 under subsequent generations of the Ball family, who eventually integrated the historic dumps and open cuts into local trail-riding and recreational geology operations.
A large loose crystal of almandine. Minimal micro-damage present. Classic material for this locality. This is complete all around with no points of attachment.
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