1995, Oktober, Calcite, Titanite, Adularia, Hematite
A forest road leads directly into the Diepalgraben. From this road, 2 paths branch off to the left and lead directly to Diepalbach. If you follow the 2nd path, you end up in front of a small, steep trench, where a small stream flows. About 100 meters further up, the site is on the left side of the stream.
In early October 1995 I was in the Zederhaus Valley for the first time looking for minerals. A verbal tip about a calcite site and exact directions lead me to the Diepalgraben. My almost five-year-old son Fabian accompanied me. We drove a part of the forest road by car, and then we walked the last part of the way.
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The place of discovery, photographed from the opposite side of the steep trench (dark hole in the center of the picture)
Soon we stood directly at Diepalbach and looking up the trench, which we still had to climb. Fabian mastered the climbing effortlessly. We then found ourselves in front of the site: a larger calcite gap that stretched about 2 meters into the mountain. We could see well-formed calcite crystals everywhere, individual specimen were on the ground. In the middle of the cleft, a particularly beautiful calcite cluster of about 50 cm had grown above the ground.
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Directly in front of the cleft, the calcite veins in the upper area are clearly visible, the bottom is darkly colored by chlorite
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Fresh salvaged Calcite
With fist and chisel I tried to separate the piece from the rock. The specimen stubbornly stayed in its place, and for Fabian the interest was soon gone. After about half an hour of Fabian monopolizing my attention, I was finally able to recover the calcite. I packed the piece carefully and we are getting ready to descend. When we got home, first we had a long snack and then we could focus on carefully cleaning the specimen. We both liked the cleaned beauty very much and were filled with pride that we had made such a great find.
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Large calcite from the collecting tour with Fabian, 36 x 23 x 21 cm
During subsequent inspections at this site, I was able to recover other beautiful calcite specimens. The calcites have an excellent gloss, show a beige color and are partly covered with chlorite. Small yellow-green titanite, small adularia and sometimes small hematite roses sit on many calcite crystals. In chlorite pockets on the right side of the cleft I could find a few specimens with high-gloss green titanite of up to 1 cm.
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Titanite on matrix, 7.5 x 4.5 x 4.2 cm
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Titanite on matrix, 7.5 x 4.5 x 4.2 cm
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Titanite and Hematite on matrix, 14 x 11.5 x 4.5 cm