Among the many pegmatite districts in Norway, the Nissedal area can be considered to be one of the most prolific in modern times. The number of pegmatite's in this district must be in the several hundreds. Many of these are hardly examined. In the Høydalen Quarry one can find about 35 different minerals, among which one new mineral species. Furthermore are the collecting possibilities still very good.

Mining in the Høydalen Quarry started during the Second Worldwar in 1942. The ore the Germans were after was the abaduntly occurring lepidolite. After the war there have been no efforts to take up the mining again.

Nowadays, the quarry is enourmously popular among collectors, and both experienced collectors and novices can find a whole suit of exciting minerals.

The quarry is operated on fee-basis, and collectors pay 30,- Norwegian krones per kilo for material they take with them. The owners of the quarry blasts a couple of times every season in order to assure collectors a fair chance to find good material. On the picture to the right you can see the owner (+daughter) of the local museum/shop "Amazonitten" in the Høydalen Quarry, collecting amazonite.

The pegmatite consists in the first place of amazonite-feldspar, quartz and lepidolite, with additionally cleavelandite and muscovite. Furthermore a number of accessories: cassiterite, gadolinite, monazite, beryl, yttrotantalite, topaz, xenotime, tourmaline, zircon, garnet. Finally, some rarer minerals that made the Høydalen quarry popular among experienced collectors: kuliokite, tveite, fluocerite ("tysonite"), kainoisite.

The quarry is opened for visitors from the 15-th of Mai till the first of October. It is necessary to ask for permission before entering the quarry. The best place is to ask in the local museum and shop "Amazonitten". On the picture to the left you get an impression of the inside of the "Amazonitten". There are signs for both this shop and the Høydalen pegmatite quarry.

 You can read about another interesting pegmatite in this district in my article "Bazzite from a pegmatite near Tørdal"! A couple of years ago a collector found what is probably the largest bazzite crystal in the world in this pegmatite.