Delaware Mineralogical Society Story Pages: Sunny Brook Crick Goethite by Joe Dunleavy

	Sunny Brook Crick Goethite Oreland, Pennsylvania October 21, 2004 By Joe Dunleavy



Joe recently shared this collecting story with Karissa and I: Ken, I used to be a member of your club but can't get to the meetings anymore so I notified Karissa and I told her if I came across any good stories or collecting sites I would share them with her. So here is a little story on my latest collecting trip. This area is the best after a heavy rainfall. There is always plenty of Goethite and Limonite in the banks of the crick but I make it a habit not to dig in the banks and cause erosion problems. This practice also keeps the neighbors of the crick happy. Well I got up today and decided I wasn’t going to do any more chores around the house for at least a day. I decided that I needed a break and remembered an article in the December Rock & Gem magazine on a site close (15 miles or so) by that had some Botryoidal Goethite for the taking. I showed him the old way I used to use to get into the city before the new super highways (parking lots that you can’t park on). This involves never going more then two blocks in a straight line without having to turn onto a different road. The problem with getting to the site is there is no way to get from point A to B without flying and involves many confusing turns to get there. I remembered a route I used to take when I worked in the city and it worked out fine for getting from A to C. I just had to figure out a way to get back to B. The magazine mentioned the Pa Turnpike, 309 and 73. None of those roads gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, so I had to improvise. It ended up taking us less time to get there then it would have to get to the turnpike. We scrambled down the embankment into the stream bed. I became “Crick Walker” once again and found out there wasn’t any water in this section of the crick. There was, however, many pieces of Goethite laying everywhere. I showed my buddy what it looked like and in 5 minutes he had quite a few pieces. Then we picked up only the better pieces to fill our back packs and left plenty for future visitors to pick up. We only explored about 50 yards of the crick that’s how good the collecting was. Did I mention what the recent heavy rains can expose for us? I had never experienced Goethite in this form before. Some of the pieces look like Obsidian since they are solid and shiny, not the usual thin layered variety I am used to collecting. I took a few pictures of two pretty clean pieces to show what they look like and I’m soaking a bucket full for later scrutiny. A couple pieces are in the 30 pound size and look like they will make nice specimens for my collection. One other piece looks like a bird in flight so I had to take that too.





When trying to get back out of the crick I had a hard time because my full pack kept dragging me back into the crick bed. By using my good old Geo Pick I was able to exit the crick bed and get back to the SUV. We spent about 20 minutes collecting and an hour talking about it before heading off home again. This was by far the easiest and one of the best sites we have visited for collecting. This crick runs through most of Oreland, Pa. We entered off Oreland Mill Road but there are plenty of other routes to take to get into the good stuff. St Clair road even has a parking lot that is used for the little league field that is right beside part of the crick. An old Rail Road siding dead ends right a the crick also, back off Montgomery. The crick even runs underneath routes 309 and 349.



The best level to search for the better Goethite is about 6 feet under the topsoil. First there is a 2 foot section of black soil, about 4 feet down, then a heavy concentration of the Goethite pieces (both Geodes and Nodules). This stream bed, below Oreland Mill Road to Lorraine, has been recently bulldozed to deepen and help keep the water from eroding the sides of the stream. Where the stream cuts down to 6 feet under the surrounding ground level it is great place for collecting Geode pieces and Nodules of Goethite. There is plenty of Quartz but it is the ugly variety as far as I found. A lot of the Geodes have a layer of Quartz running through the middle of the Goethite Geodes. If you take a good look at the sides of the crick you will notice these levels of mineralized earth exposed every so often.



If you are in the area and want some nice Botryoidal Goethite or just plain old Goethite, you should give this crick a try. It’s dry most of the year but don’t go into it when it’s raining hard. I’ll post some more pictures next week after I get then cleaned up and some more of my chores done. Joe D.
Story published with the permission of the author and adventurer, Joe Dunleavy.

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