Tying up the laces on his boots and checking the batteries in his safety pack, Dr. Mike Wise prepares to leave the quiet surface world of Virginia. He has seen magnificent emeralds in North Carolina, neon blue tourmalines in Brazil, and crystals seven meters (23 ft) in length from Canadian mines, so he can only wonder what he might find today. Switching on the lamp on his hard hat, he takes his first step into a deep hole in the ground.

With his light illuminating the ladder rungs and rock wall in front of him, he descends 15 meters (49 ft) below Earth’s surface. Turning a dark corner, he glimpses his first find, a bright green three-meter-long amazonite crystal! He examines the crystal with his hand lens and considers the unique geologic processes that formed this pegmatite intrusion. Collecting a small sample with a hammer and chisel, he continues his search in lower levels of the mine. Brilliant soccer ball size white topaz and softball size red garnets stick out of the mine walls, ceiling, and floor. Dr. Wise knows that wherever pegmatites occur, they are full of surprises. Documenting all of his finds, he quickly returns to the lab.

At the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Dr. Wise prepares the samples he collected for analysis. Using cutting-edge tools, he discovers that this area of Virginia was not always so quiet. Clues hidden in the rocks suggest that volcanoes erupted here at one time. These breakthroughs cause Dr. Wise to ask more questions. What more could these new discoveries tell him about the region’s geologic history? After recharging his batteries, he packs up his tools. There is only one way to find out.