Saturday August 23, 2003

Greetings from Weardale.

This morning is cool and a bit foggy. I can see a little blue through it all so I suspect it will burn off. Yesterday progressed from cloudy and windy to clear and sunny to cloudy again. It never quite got to raining on us but be evening the cloud cover had broken up a bit and made for one of the best sunsets I've seen here yet. Unfortunately I left my camera at the mine so there is no photo.

Spent the better part of the day yesterday at the mine. Etienne quickly set to collecting in the east tunnel and I didn't hear from him for several hours. His friend Suzanne and Joan took a walk around the quarry and up onto the moorland above it. Cal and I spent a bit of time working on extracting a fluorite-lined cavity that is exposed in the main tunnel near where Dave was busy with the Eimco mucking the main face. The rock in this area is highly altered, but contains a lot of silica so is incredibly tough. After a while it became evident that without the saw this pocket would only come out in little pieces, so I joined Cal in attempting to muck out the West Cross Cut. The ceiling near the face had come down again a couple of days ago, and though there is still a good bit of fluorite to be collected it will need some serious clean-up and timbering before more collecting can be done.

Around 1300 David Green from the University of Manchester showed up with a young lady geologist from English Nature. She had never seen an example of the mineralization the N. Pennines is famous for, and as the Rogerley is the only working underground mine left in the region, thought it a good opportunity for her. Cal and I gave a tour around the mine from which the two of them somehow escaped without becoming completely mud-covered. Etienne, on the other hand had taken to his work with great fervor and was fairly well covered. After a lunch break we all headed back to the Mine House to look at specimens. David, who is the editor of the UK Journal of Mines and Minerals had some copies of the latest issue, which contains an updated version of the Rogerley mine article originally published a few years back in Rocks & Minerals and Le Regne Mineral. It looked quite nice with new photos and some data that didn't make it into the first editions. David also tells me that the Journal has a new website, which is at: www.ukjmm.co.uk.

After David and his friend took off, Etienne spent a while selecting specimens for purchase while Joan put together a very nice roast chicken dinner for everyone. Afterwards I helped Etienne wrap and load his fluorite, and I am surprised that he got away without bottoming out the car.

Today is Joan's last day before returning to the U.S., so will be a tourist day for us. Jonina has an ever-increasing brood of baby ducklings hatching out, which the mother seems unable to care for. The solution has been to hand raise them for a few days then stick them into a cage with a hen who has so far taken them in. Quite the sight seeing a big yellow chicken with eight ducklings following it around. She has also found a shelter to take in her injured hedgehog. In between the animal husbandry I think she plans to continue cleaning and wrapping specimens. Byron will, no doubt head to the mine and continue poking around.

Stay tuned for more…

Cheers,

Jesse & the crew.

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