$20.00/Per Person – Includes One (1) Pre-Filled Bucket of our 100% Unsalted Gem Ore. The Cherokee Mine is a fee dig site, meaning you pay to dig their material, but they supply a lot of the equipment you need to go through the gravel! While at the time this is published, Feburary 2021, the mine is closed for winter and the Covid Pandemic, however, we are all looking forward to a re-opening of this location, hopefully, in summer 2021, if life works out well.Ĭheck out Bryan Major digging at the Cherokee Mine video below to get an idea of what the experience there is like! It is up to you to screen through the material and identify what is a gem, and what isn’t… but the kind staff is more than willing to help you! This material is alluvial, meaning these crystals weathered out of metamorphic rock and tumbled around for thousands of years until they arrived at the mine, so given this, the ore is in the form of soil that contains the weathered-out gemstones. Though ruby, sapphire, and corundum in general are the focus, other minerals namely red rhodolite garnet, blue-white kyanite, and metallic red brown rutile can be found with them too.

Cherokee ruby & sapphire mine