The tiny town of Mount Ida is home to rock shops, you-dig quartz mines, and national forest trails.

Some modern-day prospectors make thousands of dollars selling precious stones they dug up themselves. By Alexandra Marvar Moonstones in Montana, amethyst and emeralds in North Carolina, garnet and ...

As I turned yet another shovelful of dirt, I thought about a comment made long ago by the millionaire, Andrew Carnegie: “Men are developed the same way gold is mined. When gold is mined, several tons ...

Martina Gutfreund knew it could be hard to make a living mining crystals. Still, she was shocked to discover, on a recent trip to Namibia’s mineral-rich Erongo region, that her purchase of 250 pounds ...

Moonstones in Montana, amethyst and emeralds in North Carolina, garnet and quartz in upstate New York. At pay-to-dig mines around the United States, visitors can paw through piles of mine tailings to ...