Eastern Lake County Oregon. County and BLM roads to main camp. Dirt roads from BLM roads to claims.
67 miles NE of Lakeview, Oregon and 25 miles NE of Plush,Oregon. Lat. 42*42’51” North, Long. 119*51’59” West.
4610 elevation.

16 load claims (about 320 acres) on BLM administered land in Lake and Harney Counties and 106.6 acres of private land 1/2 mile east of where Oregon Sunstones are found on the surface of the ground. Some bearing flows reach 32 feet deep. It is not known if bearing flows go under the private property or not. 2 1/2 claims at main camp, 2 claims 1/2 mile west, 8 claims 2 miles north and 3 claims about 3 miles east. Private property is about 3 miles ESE of main camp.

Basalt flows dating from 31 million years (early Oligiocene epoch)to16 1/2 million years (mid Miocene epoch) originating at Yellowstone hot spot. There are non bearing flows interspersed with the bearing flows. The area was a great inland sea up until about 10,000 years ago causing deterioration of the basalt in some areas. The entire area is under lain with what we call the “red brick bottom” which is a red ash layer that predates the Oregon Sunstone flows. This layer can be any where from 6 feet to 32 feet below the surface. Some areas have up to 12 feet of hard cap and others from 0-1foot of cap.

The Sunstone area was claimed by Tiffany’s of NY from about 1900 into the 1950s. They mined the pale yellow stones as a diamond substitute and marketed them as Plush diamonds. After they abandoned the claims, a few people filed on the claims in the late 1950s. Oregon Sunstone became a prized rockhound’s treasure. Dust Devil Mining Co. filed their first claims in 1992 and began giving their best stones to top cutters and carvers in North America and started hosting an “Artist’s Dig In” every July brining in world renowned gemstone artists from all over North America, Europe and the Mediterranean. This lead to stones from Dust Devil Mining Co. winning 18 American Gem Trade Association Cutting Edge Awards.
Unfortunately, success breeds fraud and in 2002 the Chinese started treating Golden Labradorite from Mexico with heat and pressure and forcing copper into it to cause red and green stones that they sold as red and green andesine. It took 6 years until The International School of Gemology proved that it was treated and another 2 years before we could reclaim our market. (Http://schoolofgemology.com/GemReserch/ISGAndesineReport.html) Sales have been improving since then and there is real excitement in the market now. Dust Devil Mining Co. is now for sale because the owners want to retire.

Oregon Sunstone is a plagioclase feldspar containing copper that causes the different colors. The most common color is pale yellow with no visible copper. These stones cut beautiful stones similar to citrine in color. The next most common is pink schiller which has visible copper platelets between the lattices of the stone. These are the stones with the most copper. Next is the red with microscopic copper that lies within each lattice. Sometimes the red stones are dichroic which means the same copper that is red on one axis is green on another axis. These stones are either red, red, green or green, green, red on the three axis. Rarely, a stone will be trichroic which means one red axis, one green axis and the third axis can be teal, pink, orange, yellow or burgundy colored. The rarest stones are the watermelons. These stones have a teal colored ring around the red or schiller. This teal ring is a new mineral discovered at Dust Devil called Protoenstatite. This is the only known natural Protoenstatite in the world.
Cut stones vary in price depending on size and color saturation. We have sold small yellows for as little as $20 per carat to large reds and dichroics for $1,500 per carat wholesale. Rough stones go foe $1 per carat to $25 per carat but we rarely sell anything over $12.50 per carat as rough because we have them cut or carved for competition or finished jewelry.
There is a 4 square mile area set aside for public digging that is very popular with rockhounds. Finding god colored stones is difficult there so many of these rockhounds visit Dust Devil to dig their own or buy rough or cut stones or finished jewelry.