Site Overview #
Turner’s Island is the largest island on Lake Clear. The dive site is off the north tip, where there’s a shoal that extends from the tip of the island. The west side of the island offers an interesting landscape, consisting of a steep skree slope that extends from 3’ to 40’depth. At the bottom of the slope, the bottom suddenly becomes flat and highly silty, gradually deepening to 50’. The skree slope is interesting because of the large rocks that overhang in places. Some of the rocks contain large crystals of feldspar, hornblende and apatite. It was because of these minerals (apatite really), that a small open pit mine was worked on the island in the early 1900’s. This mine (the Turner’s Island Mine) produced world-class specimens of apatite and zircon crystals. Most mineral displays at natural science museums will have apatite specimens from either this mine or other mines in the area. Because of the proximity of the mine workings to the water, there are several areas along the skree slope where the mine tailings (small crystals and calcite host rock) were thrown or blasted into the water. These tailings make for good fun in trying to bring home your own apatite specimen.
Video of the Dive
