Harding Mine-Free Crystal Collecting site!

/ @theadventurouscouple
We took a special trip to the Harding Mine in Taos New Mexico for a fun day of FREE Rock hounding! We have never had a chance to visit here, but it was a blast! You can keep up to 5 lbs per person, and the best part it is FREE! You do have to fill out a liability form, and leave it at the entrance before you enter; but it is worth it for what you can find! Come with us and lets see what we can find!
By Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com - CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...

[@Snorlax-uc5hv]

Absolutely love the Harding mine! I go there every time I’m in New Mexico almost every summer! Beautiful stuff to be found! Blue apatite, lepidolite, pink muscovite, cubic calcite, and some other mystery minerals!

[@TheAdventurousCouple]

We had so much fun! This place is a real gem!

[@thirstfast1025]

Ah, so those _were_ apatites. Thanks for the info!

[@cherylintexas]

Beautiful!! I love the drone footage when you visit places!! And New Mexico is such a special place to be. Thanks for sharing!

[@TheAdventurousCouple]

Awe thank you Cheryl! Thanks for checking it out 😁

[@clints7834]

while you guys were out of Texas we found all the ammonites. Okay we just found 7 and 2 giants we must go back for

[@thirstfast1025]

Sweet spot! Li-Be pegmatites are a lot of fun! It could be worth looking closely at those perthites, some of them play light (much like labradorite) in what's called peristerescence (that's the name of the effect, the perthitic feldspar that plays light in this way is called "peristerite"). It might also be worth looking at the contact above the pegmatite in the host rock, as you can get lithium mineralization such as holmquistite (very pretty light lavender needles) close to the pegmatite. I've never seen so much lepidolite in situ, the material must be fairly Li rich. I'd be curious to see some of the spodumene (that's the lithium mineral I'm much more familiar with in northern Ontario). Also, 8:02 are those beryls?! Or are the apatite? I've seen blue apatite in Li-Be pegmatites before, but if those are beryls, those are _somethin!_ This is a very fun video!