The Great Australian Amethyst Mine
Patrick, Kelsey (our pup) and i with the “key stone” amethyst cluster
The great Australian amethyst mine is located in the scenic outback of Western Australia. It was first worked in the 1960s but very little specimens were ever put out into the world. That is until my partners life long dream came true. Patrick Gundersen was finally (after many years of wishful thinking) able to secure this highly sought after location. Our first dig was back in 2021, we packed the car with the camping trailer in tow and set our sails west on a 6500km drive from Queensland to Western Australia. Along the way we imagined what this mine might produce or if anything at all. We held low expectations due to the fact that the crystal market had never really circulated any of these so called “amazing” amethyst crystals. After a very long week of driving we had finally arrived at the mine and to our complete astonishment we were met with the most abundant area of crystal that we had ever seen. The ground was like walking on a carpet of glitter, the walls of the mine were draped in freshly exposed pockets of amethyst from the seasonal rain. The whole area was quite literally a crystal kingdom, It was truly a magical sight to see. Seeing as this was our first time digging this location we had given our selves 2 weeks. While only a short amount of time, we were able to produce some of the best amethyst crystals that has ever been discovered in Australia. Now we realized why this mine was called THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN AMETHYST MINE.
Fast forward to our second time at the mine: 2023. After the first dig we realized a few things had to be done differently so with that we decided to call on a few fellow crystal enthusiast friends to come help and to also share is this once in a life time experience. We also had given ourselves a little more time but as i tell you this story you will see that time soon became our “foe”. With a team of people we got down to business unerthing multiple veins of amethyst, smoky quartz and also smoky/amethyst. Until we hit something very unexpected…AN AMETHYST CAVE!. At first we really didn’t have any idea as to just how extensive this cave system was. So our plan of attack was to extract the top part that we at the time felt was most of what this cave would be. With careful use of machinery and hand tools we were able to successfully unearth what would become the “key stone” to Australia’s largest clusters ever found.
An amethyst cluster unearthed at the mine
After removing the “key stone” cluster to safety we then started to expose more and more of this system of crystal, as we did we soon realized that this was not a small cave. This was quickly becoming bigger and bigger the more we dug. After many weeks of careful extraction of host rock and soil we uncovered the full extent of this MASSIVE amethyst cluster. We were then met with the task of how to actually remove this cluster from its extremely hard matrix of dolomite and also how to get it out of the mine, as a 21 tonne cluster is not something you can easily move around. At this point we had already been at the mine for over two months working not only on digging smaller veins but also this huge cluster. Now we really had to figure out a plan because that little “foe” TIME was running out. We had already stayed much longer than we had planned, so it was of urgency to work out the next step. We then decided to hire a professional concrete cutter to cut through the hard matrix to free the cluster from the bounds of the earth. This part of the en devour took almost a week, with the last stages finally unfolding, we thought we were on the home straight. The cluster was free! now all we had to do was get it out of the mine.
Moving a cluster of this magnitude became our nightmare. We were down to the final wire, everyone was exhausted trying to come up with ideas of how to actually get this up and out. It was futile!, the straps and chains wrapped around the cluster kept breaking as the excavator arm pulled on the cluster. There was just no way this cluster was going to move as the sheer weight wouldn’t allow it. So we had to call it, There just wasn’t any more time or resources left to continue. We ended up carefully back filling the mine with the cluster still there and headed for home. BUT the story does not end here. Once we arrived back home again Patrick then got to work organizing equipment and people who could possibly help finally bring this cluster into the world. He ended by flying back to Western Australia a couple of months later in the dead of summer. He worked tirelessly with a team in 50 degree heat to finally unearth Australia’s largest amethyst cluster.
Patrick and i with our team around Australia’s largest amethyst cluster ever found
This 3 month experience was one for the books of our crystal adventures. It was both the most incredible time of our lives but also one of the hardest. Aside from the logistics surrounding the cluster, we really enjoyed sharing this journey with some of the most amazing people who have a love and passion for crystals as we do. Today we still work the mine and it continues to surprise us with variety and quality of absolutely incredible crystals that it produces. I hope you have enjoyed reading this history in the making for Australian crystals. If you would like to purchase a crystal from this famous mine be sure to look at my website, as i regularly update it with our hand dug amethyst or follow on insatgram.
Much love,
Kirsty xx
