Tourmaline Schorl on Quartz

Frostburg, MD, Western Maryland RR Station and Turntable, WM 502

The Bleeding Heart Mining Company

Tooled Up and Ready to Rock

It shouldn't be long now until the bankruptcy filing. The company will sink like a stone into oblivion.

The Bleeding Heart Mine

Garnet - The Stone Cold Bleeding Heart of Schist

Sometimes schist happens when you aren't expecting it. I was hiking along the Baltimore County side Patapsco river yesterday. I saw outcropping ledge of stone high above the ruins of of the old mill town of Daniels, aka Alberton and Elysville. I climbed up to investigate what I thought might be a nice place of shelter or hibernation for wildlife. As I was getting ready to descend, at the end of the rock I noticed a different smaller stone formation that looked like schist and also looked like it was bleeding. At first I though maybe an animal had been eating berries or a bird had made a deposit on the stone.But closer inspection revealed small red-brown crystals imbedded in the white-gray schist. Where is your rock hammer when you need it? In the trunk of your car two miles away, of course! I wasn't looking for schist or garnets and certainly did not expect to stumble on any. But I did have my cameras. So I captured some slow moving specimens of rock on digital media. My geology guru, Ira, a professional geologist confirmed the garnet schist identification.

My brother Chris, like Old Sparky whispering in my ear suggested: "Quick, buy up the land. We'll mine it, declare bankruptcy....get a bailout and run off with the money! It's the new American capitalism." I'm thinking. It's not the mother load. It's a load of schist. But we could spread stock around like manure. Don't tempt me.

The first photo, above, is of a broken off vein of schist. The piece probably fell long ago, since it is securely planted in the ground and tree is growing next to it. It was likely once a section of a horizonat ledge seen in the third photo.It looks like it's bleeding. The photo below is cropped emlargement focused on one red section.

Below is a close up of an intact horizontal vein of schist showin a few garnet cystals if you look closely.

And finally below is a photo of a small section from the vein above, which I removed. It show a nice garnet gembedded in the schist.

More Mica

Picked up some more mica and muscovite mica on the same trail as previously documented, near the Dorsey tunnel.

Resisting the change of season

Some will not submit until snow falls and draws the curtain on autumn. This canoe is beached on Brice Run just before it passes under the Old Main Line and feds into the Patapsco River between Daniels and the Dorsey tunnel on the Baltimore County side. It was the only water craft I saw today during my hike.

Found some rocks today that looked blood stained. I think I know what it is. More on that after I check with my geologist.

Autumn Light

Westbound Out of the Mt. Airy Tunnel

CSX 7834 out of the western portal of the Mt. Airy tunnel, headed for the midwest with a trainload of cars.

Mt. Airy - Point of Convergence and Divergence in Central Maryland

Mt. Airy is a small town at the geographical heart of central Maryland. It is the only place in the state where four counties meet, Frederick, Carroll, Howard and Montgomery. It is west of Baltimore and north of Washington. The headwaters of the Patapsco and Patuxent rivers are there only .6 of a mile apart.
The four counties meet at Parr's Spring, the headwater of the Patapsco on the historic Four Counties Farm on Parr's Ridge. The Patapsco river divides Carroll and Baltimore counties on the north and east from Frederick, Howard and Anne Arundel counties on the south and west as well as Baltimore City on the northeast from Anne Arundel county to the southewest The Patuxent river divides Howard,  Anne Arundel and Calvert counties on the east from from Montgomery, Prince George's, Charles and St. Mary's counties on the west. The historic National Pike from Baltimore to Illinois passes along the southern boundary of Mt. Airy, as does the Old Main Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, now owned and operated by CSX.

Liberty Dam and a Controlled Burn at Soldiers Delight

Went out with Chris today to the base of Liberty Dam and Soldiers Delight, neither of which he had visited before. Between the two hikes we stopped briefly at the shooting range of The Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore on Marriottsville Road. There had been a controlled burn of one section of grassland at Soldiers Delight since I hiked there by myself last Sunday. A few hot spots were still smoldering as we walked beside the burn area.

Soldiers Delight - Eastern Loop Trails

This morning I hiked about three miles on the eastern side of Soldiers Delight along the Choate Mine, Red Run and Dolefield trails. The temperature  was in the 40s with a northwest wind about 15 mph, a little chilly but ok because I was on the move. Red Run was pretty.and the Dolefield was mostly forested.

Some areas were completely taken over by chest high briars. In those places you couldn't leave the trail even if you wanted. Lots of deer tracks, but didn't see a single animal other than birds.

More photos here.

Soldiers Delight is Delightful

A unique serpentine barrens landscape on a beautiful day, temperatures in the 50s. Soldiers Delight Natural Environmental Area, near Owings Mills in Baltimore County, is a place worthy of return visits.I hiked a 2.5 mile loop on the Serpentine Trail with vistas like the one below.

There is also an attractive Visitor Center, and today, after my initial hike, I went on an excellent guided informational group tour on the history of chromite mining at Soldiers Delight. The Choate mine is on the Choate Mine Trail. More photos from my hike can be seen here.