Colorful autumn
surrounded by rocks
OK, I will start at the beginning. I have a specimen (shown below) with hundreds
of very tiny, prismatic crystals of vanadinite with an older label stating: Vanadinite,
Richmond Mine, South Dakota.
Photomicrographs of mass of vanadinite crystals. Crystal length is on the order of ~1 mm or less.
Manganese oxide and vanadinite.
Vanadinite and unknown patch near the center. The yellow material in lower left may be mimitite.
Now most rockhounds have a specimen, or 20, of vanadinite in their collection. The mineral is a lead chlorvanadate [Pb5(VO4)3Cl] with hexagonal crystals, various color hues of red to orange to brown, less than adamantine in luster, and soft at ~2.5-3.0 in hardness (Mohs). It forms a solid solution with pyromorphite (lead chlorophosphate) and mimitite (lead chloroaresnate). MinDat notes vanadinite is a secondary mineral found in the “oxidation zone of lead deposits in arid climates resulting from the alteration of vanadiferous sulphides and silicates of the gangue and wall rocks.” Due to color and crystal shape, vanadinite is a very collectable mineral.
So, readers now
have a new little chore. Use a web browser to locate specimens, MinDat is ok,
of vanadinite from say Arizona. You will find there are too many localities and
photos to count. Now browse for vanadinite in South Dakota and what do you
find? I count 1 photo and 5 localities,
and a couple of those may be suspicious. So, what happened to such a large hunk
of vanadinite mined in the 1880s?
This story all
started with Lt. Col. George Custer, on July 2, 1974, “marching” out from Fort
Abraham Lincoln (located across the Missouri River from Bismarck, North Dakota)
with somewhere close to 1200 men. Besides members of 10
companies of his 7th Calvary (including a 16 piece band), the
group included ~110 wagons and accompanying teamsters, about 300 head of
cattle for food in case the hunters could not produce game, a medical staff,
several newspaper correspondents, the experienced miners Horatio Ross and
William McKay (perhaps disguised as teamsters), several Native American Scouts,
at least two of Custer’s staghounds, extra horses and mules, Chief Engineer
Captain William Ludlow and his assistant (who produced wonderful maps), and
Scientist George Bird Grinnell, a graduate student at Yale who later became a
famous anthropologist, naturalist and writer, assigned to describe the flora
and fauna. Grinnell had three assistants: 1) Newton H. Winchell
later became the Director of the Minnesota State Geological Survey and authored
the six volume treatise entitled The Geology of Minnesota; 2) Luther North, a
jack-of-all-trades best remembered for leading a group of Pawnee Scouts, along
with his brother Frank, helping protect the Union Pacific Railroad and later
business partners with William (Buffalo Bill) Cody; and 3) A.B. Donaldson, a
botanist and newspaper “man” from Minnesota. William Illingworth,
the Expedition’s photographer, evidently was hired by Ludlow to provide photos
for the U.S. Army. The Expedition also included at least one woman;
a former slave known as Aunt Sally who cooked for Sulter John Smith.
The official record for the trip was a “military
reconnaissance of the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory.” Unofficially, the military wanted to: 1) find
ways to subdue the remaining Native Americans in the Black Hills and Powder
River Basin; and 2) locate gold so that an unstoppable stampede of miners would
head to the Black Hills (see #1). The military and President Grant succeeded
although George Custer was less successful personally.
Minor amounts of
gold were found in the area along French Creek in the southern part of the
Hills (near the current town of Custer).
Just a few flakes, along with the newspaper press, were enough to bring
the masses. However, gold mining in the Custer area was never really very
successful although many cubic yards of soil and gravel were turned over and
panned or sluiced for the metal. In time the early miners, as well
as new immigrants, spread throughout the Hills looking for a miracle of yellow
gold.
Several early mining
communities started to spring up in the northern Black Hills with the most
famous being those mines located near Deadwood and Lead. Several other mining
districts were located south and southeast of Spearfish, and I described the
Maitland Mining District (Garden District) along False Bottom Creek (posting on
October 22, 2016. The earliest mining activity at Maitland started
in the 1880s; however, the major production of gold and
silver commenced in 1902 with the opening of the principal Maitland
Mine. In 1942 the Maitland was closed (due to the country’s effort
in WWII) but had produced at least 176,000 ounces of gold. The
mineralization is a replacement gold deposit in the quartzite and dolomite
units of the Deadwood Formation (Cambrian-Ordovician) with mineralizing
fluids associated with nearby Tertiary intrusions.
Today there is a
small cluster of homes (not the originals) located in the Maitland community.
There is also a side road, named either the Carbonate Road or the False Bottom
Creek Road, trending west to the old mining area of Carbonate
Camp. The name comes from ore mineralization in the middle Paleozoic
Pahasapa Limestone rather than from the Deadwood Formation.
In the Carbonate District, the Pahasapa was also intruded extensively by
Tertiary sills and dikes. Wimorat and Patterson (2007) noted two different
types of ore bodies at Carbonate: 1) fissure veins with gold-bearing iron gouge
in the center and lead-silver rich (galena, cerussite, and cerargyrite)
mineralized jasperoids (silica) along the margins; and 2) solution
cavity-filling ores that are usually closer to igneous intrusions, are less
siliceous than jasperoid, and are rich in lead and silver with minor gold.
The major minerals
produced at Carbonate were silver, lead and minor gold with the best production
for less than 20 years from ~1880-1900 (peak years 1885-1891). In 1885 the
Iron Hill Mine, the largest of the Carbonate mines, began to produce gold,
silver and lead, and a smelter was constructed. By 1891 the mine had produced
$667,000 worth of ore (I presume by 1891 prices). However, Shapiro and Gries
(1970) stated that “incomplete records indicate a production of more than $1
million in silver, gold, and lead [from 1881 to 1891].” Other smaller mines in
the area included the Adelphi (the largest Carbonate Mine before 1890), Seabury-Calkins,
Cleopatra, Pocahontas, Union Hill, Spanish R, and Richmond Hill. But by 1892-93
the town was about played out. Declining silver prices was the big killer;
however, a massive degradation of the roads to “civilization” struck a big blow.
Today historians remember that in the late 1880s Carbonate Camp was a booming
town with hundreds of residents, numerous businesses, including banks,
newspapers, stores, mills, smelters, saloons, the Black Hills Hotel, the
largest hotel in the Dakota Territory, was three stories high and housed a
saloon and banquet room.
The mines at
Carbonate kept plugging away and tried, several times, to “make a go of it.” Irving (1904) stated that “within the last
year [actually 1887 according to Parker and Lambert, 1974)] a small 85-ton
cyanide plant has been erected to treat the tailings from the old smelter.” A short
lived second cyanide mill (I think) was built in 1900-01 and named the Cleopatra
Mine Mill (Bureau of Mines staff, 1954).
After the turn of
the century some off and on exploration and mining continued at Carbonate Camp,
especially at the Iron Hill Mine where the dumps were reworked from 1901-1910. However, around 1920 exploration hit a snag
when the mine flooded and projects were stopped. Like a Phoenix, Carbonate Camp arose from the
ashes and was ready to try again when in 1937 Carbonate Consolidated Mining
Company, Inc. acquired the mine; however, I could no longer locate production
figures (Bureau of Mines staff, 1954) so the old bird must have bitten the dust
(The Phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology, with
analogs in many cultures, that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born
again. Associated with the sun, a Phoenix obtains new life by arising from
the ashes of its predecessor [Wikipedia accessed 19 October 21]).
The Cleopatra Mine
never did produce much and Bureau Mines (1954) reported mineral values of ~$200,000—some
time prior to 1910. The host rock at Cleopatra
was different from that at Iron Hill since replacement was in the Cambrian
Deadwood Formation (as at Maitland).
The Adelphi Mine,
of which I have no production figures or history, had ferruginous jasperoid, manganese
oxide, galena, and argentiferous cerussite replacing the Pahasapa Limestone. Some
of the crevices and fractures associated with the ore had “high gold values”
(Bureau of Mines staff, 1954).
The Seabury-Calkins
Mine and the Segregated Iron Hill Mine are close to the Adelphi Mine, and with
the Spanish R, were also acquired in 1937 by the Carbonate Consolidated Mining
Company, Inc. No production figures are
available for the first three, but the Spanish R had $50,000 of production before
1904 (Bureau of Mines, 1954).
It is hard to find
production figures for the total mines at Carbonate Camp; however, Shapiro and
Gries (1970) stated that in the peak six years the various mines produced 83 ounces of gold [Carbonate
Camp was not a major gold producer],18,511 ounces of silver, and 83,191 pounds
of lead.
Irving (1904) described the mining geology and minerals in the Carbonate Camp
as follows: The country rock that carries the ore in the Iron Hill mine (more
on this later) is the gray Carboniferous limestone (Pahasapa Formation) in
which sills, dikes, and irregular masses of
porphyry have been intruded. The ore
bodies are of two kinds: large irregular bodies of lead carbonate, which pass
in places into more or less unaltered galena, generally in close contact with
the porphyry masses: and partially filled crevices which resemble in a general
way the verticals of Ragged Top (a nearby mining district).
[At the Iron Hill Mine] the ore was a large mass of argentiferous lead
carbonate (cerussite with silver) which extended down for 800 feet on the east
side of a thick dike of fine-grained porphyry.
Much galena was also found with the carbonates, and after the ore was
worked out a seam or vertical was detected downward from the main mass. Other pockets of ore were also found at
different points, and in one place a pocket of vanadinite containing 4 or 5 tons was encountered. [Minerals identified
from the Mine] included galena, cerussite, cerargyrite, matlockite, wulfenite,
pyromorphite, plattnerite, atacamite, and vanadinite.”
But what about vanadium value? One
would think that a 4-5-ton mass of vanadinite would be processed, and
production numbers and monetary value would appear--somewhere? Or would it be?
The element vanadium was first discovered in 1801, rediscovered in 1831, and
isolated and produced in 1867. I don’t
know what happened after that date but the first widespread industrial use for
vanadium was to harden steel for use in cars, including the early Model T Fords,
in the first decade of the 20th Century. Today,
besides the steel alloys, vanadium is used as a catalyst for
the chemical industry, in the making of ceramics, glasses, and pigments, and perhaps
in the most exciting new use- in vanadium redox-flow batteries for large-scale
storage of electricity. Would the
country need vanadium in the ~1890s? Was
it even being produced/processed? I don’t really know as the earliest
production figures I can locate were from 1901 when the U.S. produced a
whooping 6.8 tons of vanadium and imported “nothing.” I remain uncertain as to the use of vanadium
~1900.
|
VANADIUM
STATISTICS |
||||||||
|
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY |
||||||||
|
[All values in metric tons (t) vanadium
content unless otherwise noted] |
||||||||
|
Last modification: November 20, 2019 |
||||||||
|
Year |
Production |
Imports |
Exports |
Stocks |
Apparent
consumption |
Unit value ($/t) |
Unit value (98$/t) |
World production |
|
1901 |
6.80 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
6.8 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
So perhaps the
4-5-ton hunk of vanadinite was stuck in a stamp mill and then processed for a
more useful economic mineral like silver?
This is one of life’s little mysteries that continue to nibble away at inquiring
mines. I do know that specimens of
vanadinite from South Dakota are quite rare and this little factoid is what
spurred me on to spend tens of hours reviewing what literature I located.
Vanadinite is rarely
mentioned in the literature describing South Dakota minerals, or in the big
picture where vanadinite is described on a world-wide basis. Campbell and
Roberts (1985) noted that the dumps at the Iron Hills Mine yielded the endlichite
variety of vanadinite occur[ing] as pale brown, slender prismatic crystals up
to 1 cm long, in attractive groups. Thick yellow to orange-yellow botryoidal
crusts of mimetite are often associated with vanadinite. Smith and
Fritzsch (2000) stated the Carbonate Consolidated Mines (would be the group
consolidated in 1937) produced specimen(s) of vanadinite. But again, I could
not locate photographs. The same goes for Baldwin (1904) reporting vanadinite
from the Spanish R, a point no other website nor research paper noted (except a
single statement in Shapiro and Gries {2000} simply quoting Baldwin). The best
description of Carbonate Camp vanadinite is from Roberts and Rapp (1965): Vanadinite
is a secondary mineral found in the oxidized zone of lead deposits in the Black
Hills…A large mass of vanadinite, weighing between four and five tons…was mined
from the Iron Hill Mine, Carbonate, during the silver mining operations in the
late 1880’s. The vanadinite occurred in small and slender prismatic crystals
(SDSM&T-3326), often hair-like in fineness, of a light brown color and up
to ½ inch in length. The Geology Museum at South Dakota School of Mines was
kind enough to send me photos of that particular specimen and those answer one
of my questions about any additional specimens.
I am convinced that most later authors mentioning the Iron Hill
vanadinite did not have newly discovered specimens but were simply noting the Museum
specimen; however, I could be wrong.
South Dakota Mines Museum of Geology vanadinite specimen SDSM&T-3326.
As best that I can tell, there is at least one
vanadinite specimen from the Richmond-Sitting Bull Mine in the Galena District
since a photo is shown on MinDat (by Stephen Fritz). However, Smith and
Fritzsch (2000) noted vanadinite from the Queen Mine at Galena rather than the
Richmond-Sitting Bull Mine as did Roberts and Rapp (1965) who were evidently
following an earlier paper by Connolly and O’Harra (1929). This latter paper
was unavailable to me. I should also point out that the Richmond-Sitting Bull
Mine (Galena District) is not the Richmond Hill Mine at Carbonate Camp.
MinDat also noted the
presence of vanadinite (sparingly) from the upper part of the Spokane Lead Mine
in Custer County (Ziegler, 1914), but again additional information or photos
were not provided.
In addition, the
Rainbow #4 Mine in Custer County (one of my favorite sites) was listed in MinDat
as reporting the presence of vanadinite.
However, Smith and Fretzsch (2000), and Lincoln Page (1953) who
described the locality, did not mention the mineral.
So, that is about the
story I have on vanadinite occurrences in South Dakota: 1) vanadinite is rarely
found in mines of the Black Hills; 2) a four to five ton mass of vanadinite was
mined in the late 1880s from the Iron Hill Mine in the Carbonate Mining
District; 3) I don’t have specific information on the fate of this large mass;
4) a vanadinite specimen displayed in the Geology Museum of the South Dakota School
of Mines may have come from this mass; 5) the Richmond Hill Mine is part of, or
next door to, the Iron Hill Mine; 6) Tom Loomis of Dakota Matrix was able to
identify my specimen as coming from the Iron Hill Mine; 7) it seems reasonable
to believe that my specimen of vanadinite may have part of that large mass, perhaps not; 8)
photos of vanadinite specimens from South Dakota are essentially nonexistent;
9) the Black Hills are home to several mines that have produced the lead
minerals cerussite and/or galena—could these mines contain vanadinite; 10)
writing this posting has been like composing a mystery novel!
But wait, there is
more. Remember that the Carbonate District
and especially the Iron Hill/Richmond Hill Mine “died” a century ago, or did it? Remember the Phoenix coming back to life? In 1988 the State of South Dakota gave a
permit to LAC Minerals to operate a surface gold mine on 400 acres associated
with the Richmond Hill Mine. LAC
evidently had taken an interest in the area and decided a Tertiary breccia pipe
that had intruded into Precambrian rocks contained mineable amounts of gold. Yep, gold--the old Carbonate District was notorious
for giving up miniscule amounts of gold and now LAC was going after the metal
in a big way. Geologists were interested
in the gold bearing sulfide minerals and therefore needed a large open
production pit (most early Carbonate mines were underground) and heap-leach pits
to extract the commodity. In order to
satisfy State requirements about acid mine drainage in a rugged area LAC built
the processing facility (the crusher and pits) about a mile and a half from the
main production pit. And away they went producing 172,000 ounces of gold in
four years. Not bad.
All of this action in
the waste pile created a flurry of activity within LAC and the State Board of
Minerals and Environment with immediate short-term remediation leading to long
term stability, mine closure, and post-closure monitoring and land uses. Today remediation
activities continue on as-needed and monitoring is still active. Will the
Phoenix arise at some time in the future a carbonate Camp?
Above information on
the LAC mine was derived from Durkin (1995).
I owe a great deal of
thanks to Tom Loomis of DakotaMatrix.com for his advice and identification on my specimen of vanadinite,
and to Emily Berry, Assistant Director, Museum of Geology South Dakota Mines,
for sharing photographs of the Museum’s specimen of vanadinite.
REFERENCES CITED
Baldwin, G. P., 1904, Black Hills illustrated: Black Hills Mining Men's Association, Publisher unknown.
Bureau of Mines staff, Region V,1954, Black Hills mineral atlas, South
Dakota: Part 1: Information Circular 7688.
Campbell, T.J. and W.L. Roberts, 1985, Mineral localities in the Black Hills of South Dakota: Rocks
& Minerals, v. 60, no. 3.
Connolly, J. P.,
1927, The Tertiary mineralization of the northern Black Hills South Dakota
School of Mines Bull. 15.
Durkin, T.V., 1995, Acid mine drainage: reclamation at the Richmond Hill
and Gilt Edge Mines, South Dakota:
www.envirominecom/case-hist/richmondhill/chl.html.
Page, L. R., and
others, 1953, Pegmatite investigations 1942-45, Black Hills, South Dakota: U.S.
Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 247.
Parker, Watson
and H.K. Lambert, 1974, Black Hills ghost towns: Chicago, The Swallow Press.
Sinclair, Kelesy, 2018. Exploring Black Hill’s hidden ghost towns: Carbonate:
BHVisitor.
Smith, A.E. and E.
Fritzsch, 2000, South Dakota: Rocks and Minerals, v. 75, no. 3.
Wimorat, M. and
C.J. Paterson, 2007, Carbonate-hosted Au-Ag-Pb deposits, northern Black Hills in Paterson, C.J. and A.L. Lisenbee,
Metallogeny of gold in the Black Hills, South Dakota (T.B. Thompson, Ed.):
Society of Economic Geologists Guidebook Series Volume 7.
Ziegler, V., 1914,
The minerals of the Black Hills: South Dakota: School of Mines Bull. 10.