The link above is a video we made in the Summer of 2024, we wanted to show some of the basic processes of mining Amethyst from cleaning of the bedrock, drilling 3’ holes with the air powered rock drill, loading holes with explosives, blasting, bringing the amethyst to the wash area for cleaning and then placing the piece in our Rock shop at the mine. Our family has been doing this for over 50 years. Currently we perform these tasks 2 to 3 times a week in various locations of the mine. We do use heavy equipment mostly for heavy lifting and moving Amethyst around the site however most of the Amethyst for our shop and picking piles are handled by hand several times. I personally go thru the entire blast by hand and once the blast is cleaned up we clean out the vugs and any exposed Amethyst we can extract.
