San Benito Mountains
posted in Collecting Locations, Filming, Family & Friends |Let’s see, Wednesday and Thursday we spent in the San Benito Mountains, near the Diablo Range. This is Central California, south of San Jose, for those that aren’t in the know.
This area is not only desolate, but down right treacherous in some areas. Known primarily for the Gem Mine, where the state gemstone, Benitoite is found, San Benito also has a plethora of various other deposits.
The most plentiful is serpentine, but there is also benitoite, neptunite, garnet, vesuvianite, agate, dolomite, cinnabar, meta-realgar, fossils, quartz, asbestos, mercury, and many others of less interest to field collectors.
Today the San Benito area is a combination of public and privately held lands, and is primarily used for recreational motor sports such as 4 wheeling and dirt biking, therefore, definitely not for the faint of heart.
We rented a heavy duty truck with high clearance, and even then some of the roads were still impassable from any number of obstructions; dirt slides, mud, streams, over grown, rutted, or just plain gone.
San Benito is a really beautiful area, but one that is hard to explain to someone who has never witnessed it.
Due to the combination of elevation and climate, the landscape around here is one of surreal qualities. It is what is referred to as a “Pine Desert”, similar to a regular pine forest, but the pines here are more of the shrub variety and are growing in the arid desert climate and rocky, sandy soil.
Couple this with all the blue and green serpentine EVERYWHERE, and I you have a landscape of a fairy tale, or possibly a Mark Ryden painting. Just spectacular, and my personal favorite type of landscape.
We started out the day by going with Rick Kennedy to the Gem Mine to look for benitoites and neptunites in naturalite.
Rick is a regular at this location and quickly finds a keeper.
Some great finds from Terry at the mine.
After saying good-bye to everyone we set out to explore more of the surrounding mountains to hopefully find some great locations for the video. With help from Rick and a series of topo maps marked with “X’s” we were off in search of adventure.
Cinnabar Hill
Jade Hill
Spanish Lake
After climbing a very steep hill, we found plant fossils.
And thistles.
However our favorite location was the “plasma agate”. We just couldn’t get enough of it, and who can blame us, it’s agate included with MERCURY!
Supposedly if you bust open certain pieces a mercury blob will come out. I tried, to no avail.
And of course on our way out, we were sure to gather up some scary ass ASBESTOS, because you all just know how much we love that stuff.
