Moses Hill (Magnet Cove)
Arkansas
Find: Brookite, smoky quartz, rutile
GPS: 34.45339,-92.84631
Nearest city: Hot Springs, AR
Recommended Vehicle: Any
Season: Intermittent public digs year-round.
Summary:
Moses Hill is a well-regarded site in Magnet Cove, Arkansas that has caught the eyes of prospectors since the 1880s. The site is famed for it’s brookite - a rare polymorph of titanium dioxide. It forms black metallic rhombuses that like to cling to smoky quartz crystal clusters.
I re-visited this site for a paid dig on Memorial Day weekend of 2026. We paid $300 for a 2 day dig, with no limit on what could be kept.
The digging here is very unique. The dense orange mud conceals many of the small brookites polygons that cling to the smoky quartz crystals.
Moses Hill was being operated by Avant Mining as of early 2025 when I first visited.
Note: New images are needed from the return trip in 2026. I dug in fresh wall and did much better than the first go around.
Video
Check out the video to best see what can be found when exploring this spot.
3 Helpful Tools
D-Handle Mini Shovel
Picking a good shovel will save you countless effort throughout the day. I like the little $15 ones from Lowe’s or Harbor Freight.
Gad Bar
This is my favorite tool I own. I used this to wedge behind and extract the big smoky quartz and brookite cluster I found in the video.
Classifier
If you want to look for loose brookites, pair a classifier with a plastic bin of water. Look for flashy black surfaces.
An enthusiastic crowd lined up and ready to dig at the event
There was an excavator on the property to try and dig down into some of the known veins
An example of tailings, this is some stuff you'll typically want to toss aside.
Quartz jumps out, even amongst the thick mud
A quartz point I found, all cleaned up
Some quartz points I was given by one of the site workers who I chatted with. They have almost a gray color to them, rather than black
This is the large cluster I pulled out during the video
Bamboo kebab skewers were the most effective tool for getting this thing clean. A textile gun works even better if it's in your budget.
A picture of the cluster all cleaned up
I worked on this piece for about 6 hours total over a few sit-downs to remove that orange mud
Here's as clean as I could get this thing
I actually almost left this piece behind when it was all covered in mud. I thought there was no way all those little bumps could be crystal points or brookite.