Sapphire and Garnet Slobber Bags - Central Queensland Gemfeilds!

This is sapphire paydirt from the FNQ Gemfields around Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby vale and Anakie. Each bag contains raw sapphires, corundum, zircon, garnet and possibly other stones mined in the central Gemfields of Queensland.

The process is simple, the miners peg a $500 claim and start digging for river wash in long forgotten deep Leeds. The Stones in this dirt are from our friends at GemFest, the single best gemstone show in the Southern Hemisphere.

The river was is either manually sieved to concentrate the sapphires and other gemstones with the other heavier materials like ironstone. Or they use automated jigs to do the same thing.

Once concentrated it's a matter of flipping the sieve over and using your eyes to search for the precious stones. They can be as small as a pin head or as large as a tennis ball.

And I can tell you it's loaded!

Every spoonful I've done reveals dozens of gemstones. From raw sapphires and zircons to all other manner of volcanic mineral

You can either sieve it in a kitchen strainer, pan it in a gold pan or go though it by eye.