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MOREFIELD MINE
Amelia County, Virginia
December 13, 2008

It was a great trip! Several of us met at the Jumbo Family Restaurant on US 460 and most of us departed as a group. There were several �eager beavers� that launched ahead to blaze the trail I guess. We stopped for a short break at the McDonald�s in the Amelia Courthouse area as planned. It was recently renovated so there is lots of room and outfitted nicely.
We arrived at the appointed time of 10AM but there were many ahead of us that had arrived early. We checked in and several of us signed up for the underground mine tour. Due to the recent heavy rains the day before, Sam was having difficulty lowering the water level in the mine. Both of his pumps had failed, so he was trying to bail out the mine using the muck bucket. This is the dump bucket he uses to bring the ore (muck) to the surface. He was only able to lower the level so that he could conduct tours in the upper two drifts. Things were still pretty wet but as always, the tour was worthwhile. This is the only mine in our area of the country and perhaps the whole United States, where you can stand in the middle of such a beautiful enriched pegmatite.
There were many folks in attendance, probably between 50 and 75. Between the Lynchburg and Roanoke Clubs I recognized 36 members. There were 6 new members that were there but were not recognized by me. I did see their names on the sign in sheet at the mine office. What a great turnout. Sam was not able to bring up any of the newly blasted material, as it was under water, with no way to retrieve it. Nevertheless, he scrapped around his previously mined material, and was able to provide us with many loader buckets of decent material.
I was very pleased with my finds and I really enjoyed the underground mine tour. Thank you Sam and Sharon for once again making your mine available to us. Perhaps in the spring we will have another opportunity, but if not, we will all have some wonderful memories.
Field Trip Report submitted by Dave Callahan, field trip chairman.


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