By Jaime Kautsky and Emily Stegman
Photos by Robert Weldon and Brendan Laurs

Southern California jeweler John Hoan Nguyen considers himself a hands-on learner. That's because the Laos native, a 25-year veteran of the industry, has been inspired by the Vietnamese concept of learning: hoc hoi.

He said the term, which literally translates to "study question," reminds him how important it is to be actively involved in the learning process.

"So, it has always been my dream to visit a mine," he said.

Nguyen and nearly 100 other gem and mineral enthusiasts – including pegmatite experts David London, Federico Pezzotta, Bob Linen and Lee Groat – had a chance to investigate three active mines in San Diego County's Pala Pegmatite District during two field trips held in conjunction with GIA's Gemological Research Conference.

The group met in Fallbrook at Pala International President Bill Larson's gallery and retail store, The Collector Fine Jewelry. Larson gave a tour of the mineral room, where he houses part of his famous collection and prepares new specimens for display and purchase.

Participants also enjoyed a look into the store's most unique feature – a space built to resemble what Larson called a "very realistic" tourmaline pocket, as would be found in a gem-bearing pegmatite.

About 20 miles away, Bob Dawson led attendees through the Pala Chief mine and gave a drilling demonstration. It took several years to drive the tunnels and find what he considers his "best pocket yet" – one that produced large crystals of tourmaline, along with some kunzite and morganite – in November 2000.

Visitors gathered outside the Pala Chief, where Dawson called attention to light colored outcrops exposed on the nearby hillside. The westerly dip of the outcrops helps identify them as veins of pegmatite, he said.

Just down the hill sits the Elizabeth R mine, where Roland Reed has made mining his hobby since 1972.

"It's surprising how many people don't have any idea what's entailed in the mining process, but many are impressed once they know," Reed said, outlining the considerable investment of time, money and labor necessary to operate a mine.

He said it took him more than 30 years of working two days a week to drive 1,000 feet of tunnel – costing approximately $1,000 a foot. Reed finds gem pockets, "weak spots" in the rock, by following various signs in the pegmatite vein, which was emplaced nearly 100 million years ago.

Perhaps the most historically significant site in the region is the Stewart Lithia mine, which employed more than 120 workers in the 1880s, most of whom were Chinese. The Chinese miners worked the mine for pink tourmaline to send back to the Dowager Empress Tz'u Hsi in Beijing (formerly Peking).

Owner J. Blue Sheppard told how U.S. marshals acting under the Chinese Exclusion Act, a federal law that suspended Chinese immigration into America, threatened to send the miners to internment camps and drove them out of the Stewart at the turn of the 20th century. A miner rediscovered the old Chinese tunnel in 1970 and found ore cars containing 400 pounds of tourmaline, morganite, quartz and kunzite; a dim sum basket and traditional Chinese mining tools were also found intact.

London, a professor at the University of Oklahoma's School of Geology and Geophysics, said he appreciated the behind-the-scenes tours.

"Gem-bearing pegmatites are very rare – a tiny proportion of all the pegmatites that occur. It's especially rare for people to get a chance to see gem-bearing pegmatite mines, since the mines are usually closed to visitors and details are kept very private," he said. "It's great that the miners have been so willing to open their mines to us."