Coontail quartz got its name from the alternating black and white bands in the crystal, which look like a racoon's tail.       Index to Quartz Digging Cleaning Worth Fee Pay Mines Types Forms Inclusions Geology Mineralogy Synthetic Gemstones Handedness Experiments

Coontail Quartz Q. We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas a couple of weeks ago, and of course had to go to Mt. Ida to dig quartz crystals. We were staying with a friend who knows a mine owner and we had a wonderful time. It happened to be a record setting temperature day of 105, but we started at sunrise and were exhausted by 11:00. While I was buying some oxalic acid in one of the local rock shops, I saw some really interesting examples of coontail quartz. Even though I have heard of this quartz before, this was my first time to really get to examine some. I bought a small piece and of course its location was given as Magnet Cove. Could you give me some information on how and what gives this quartz its strange appearance? Thanks and Happy Hounding, Mickey Cecil A. Coontail quartz is a local name for a particular variety of smoky quartz collected at several sites adjacent to Magnet Cove. Examples are known from the Hardy-Walsh property, Moses Hill, and the Christy mine, but perhaps the best known and most collected site was the Runyan quartz mine, which was located on a novaculite ridge about a mile due north of the Magnet Cove intrusion. The best examples of coontail quartz are characterized by sector growth and some alternating zoning of both smoky and milky gray quartz. Individual crystals rarely are seen over 1.5 inches in length, but they might reach the same size in diameter. In other words, they are generally short and stubby in habit rather than long and prismatic like the more typical rock crystal variety of quartz. Coontail quartz gets its name from the alternating color bands sometimes seen on the exterior of crystals, which may somewhat resemble the pattern of a racoon's tail. This banding is also readily seen if you cut and polish the crsytal at right angle to the point or termination. I cut several cabochons and they all display this zoning very well. Another characteristic of coontail quartz from the Runyan mine is that the surface luster is usually dull, even on the termination. This is probably due to late alkaline fluids having etched the surface. Mr. Carl Runyan operated this mine for a few years, before he passed away. Then his widow let a relative operate it for awhile. He produced a large amount of coontail quartz which he sold to Ron Coleman. Ron still has it for sale at his two shops, principally the shop called Rocks-R-Gems on US Highway 270 East in Hot Springs, near the federal Gulpha Gorge campground. The site has been closed to private collectors since Mr. Runyan's death. It is interesting to note that this is the furthest site away from the Magnet Cove intrusion that shows this type of mineralization associated with escaping fluids. The dark gray to sometimes black quartz formed in fractures in the white hard Arkansas Novaculite formation. The smoky color was due to irradiation effects. Mr. Runyan told me that he initially located the veins on the ridge with a geiger counter. The AEC checked out this location years ago and all the radioactive material here was thorium-bearing, not uranium so there was no commercial interest in the location until Mr. Runyan came along. The mine consisted of a series of bulldozer cuts, trending along the length of the ridge. In the cuts where the best quartz veining was exposed, a trackhoe was used to break out the specimen material. The veins I have seen in place were exposed for several feet and trended parallel to the east-west trend of the ridge. Some minor crossveining was also present. The largest veins I saw had up to 4 inch wide cavities with crystals projecting inward. The site is known also for the extremely tenacious iron-cemented clay that coats the crystals and causes a real problem in cleaning specimen material. I also saw and collected some few specimens of sparkly smoky quartz drusy crystals (very attractive micromount material), some late crusts of drusy rock crystal on top of the stubby coontail growth, and some very small, but highly lustrous black brookite crystals and druses of these brookite crystals. I have seen essentially none of this type of material at the local rock shops in Hot Springs, only the more typical zoned coontail on novaculite matrix from the Runyan mine. One shop at Mount Ida has some clusters of small doubly terminated, dull lustered, grayish quartz from the Christy mine that they are calling "alpha" quartz. It's not alpha quartz, but instead normal gray smoky quartz that formed as coarse druses in some zones in the novaculite, but it is somewhat attractive and unusual now that this Christy mine has been reclaimed. There is still a significant amount of coontail quartz available at local rockshops! I heard that one fellow in Hot Springs Village had actually purchased enough of this rock to have a fire place built. I think that might be pretty impressive to see, but so far have had no luck finding this person.   Contact the authors of Rockhounding Arkansas Revised Feb 2000 © Rockhounding Arkansas 1998 http://rockhoundingAR.com