I am still rummaging around my mineral collection trying to sort out and check material after my move from Colorado to Wisconsin. But I am not very diligent with sorting through a large amount of material “tossed” into the garage. This latter mess does not include my minerals; therefore, the stuff is being re-thrown into two piles 1) why did I transport this material just to haul it to Goodwill; and 2) how do I find space for this “good” stuff? I guess these are some of life’s persistent questions so perhaps I should call in Guy Noir!
Sorting minerals is an enjoyable hobby as I try to
come up with ideas on how to include them on this Blog. Today I am briefly
noting three mineral specimens that are quite attractive but only cost about a buck each. That $3.50 total is about the price of a single black
coffee at my local shop. The initial taste of the coffee is fantastic, but the
enjoyment of the minerals is long lasting.In addition, I am throwing in a couple of other, slightly more expensive, specimens.
One of best-known mining areas in Colorado is Creede, located in the San Juan Mountains in the southwestern quadrant of the State. The mines of the area produced, starting in ~1891, a significant amount of silver. The mine owners prospered for a couple of years but then the Panic of 1893 hit like a bomb as the Sherman Silver Act was repealed that year. Many smaller and less productive silver mines at all locations in the country were shuttered due to lower prices for silver and costly production costs. However, the Creede mines utilized their massive silver-rich veins and lower production costs to survive the Panic and produce until 1985 when the Last Chance mine closed. But even today there are rumors of core drilling in the area as companies try to ferret out new productive veins.
Want to know about the Sherman Silver Act? Check post May 18, 2012
Creede is a booming community today—but only during the summer/fall months. Like the mythical Phoenix arising from the ashes and regenerating itself, Creede has made the journey from a typical western mining community with periods of boom and bust to a thriving “destination locality” that attracts thousands of visitors each year. The community has “boomed” due to the merging of their past silver history/wealth with an absolutely gorgeous physical setting at 8850 feet, a well designed underground mine tour, an underground museum, well preserved Victorian buildings and timbered mining structures, art galleries, numerous cultural and social events such as a rock and mineral show, a scenic main street hemmed in by tall, 1000 feet, beds of rhyolite, and the presence of the Amethyst Vein that still produces great mineral specimens. However, the icing on the cake was the arrival, in 1997, of Jack Moris, a long-haul truck driver, and his dream of turning a mine or two into an immense geology attraction. So, off he went and purchased the Last Chance Mine situated along the Amethyst Vein, started specimen-collecting, both in the mine and in the dumps, and soon attracted hordes of rockhounds and tourists. Today, visitors can pay a very modest fee to collect in the dumps, take an educational underground mine tour (fully approved by the State), and purchase magnificent specimens in the gift shop. Old Creede, along with the ingenious Jack and his mine, has proved to be a spectacular tourist attraction, not only for rockhounds but for fans attending performances of the well-respected Creede Repertory Theater, the annual rock drilling competition, and the camping, off road and ATV trails, and nearby cold-water trout fisheries to provide a wealth of opportunities.
As a kid growing up in small town Kansas, I believed that we could see the mountains as soon as dad crossed the Kansas-Colorado state line on U.S. 40 heading to Denver. Today, more educated Kansas visitors to Colorado know you can’t spot Pikes Peak from I-70 but often believe that the State’s magnificent mountains formed about the same geological time during the Laramide Orogeny (AKA mountain building event). And it is true that the Laramide event greatly affected much of the western half of the State. I suppose it is too complicated to tell the kiddos that the elevation of the Front Range is due to a post Laramide regional uplift and accentuated by erosion.
However, the San Juan Mountains have their ancestor in the major volcanic event starting about 40 Ma when large magma domes begin pushing up and exploding, a massive ignimbrite flare-up across Utah, Colorado, and Utah in what must have been spectacular fashion. Many of these volcanoes and vents spewed out so much ejecta they collapsed inward forming great calderas (think Crater Lake in Oregon). The best known of these San Juan calderas is probably the La Garita Caldera associated with a “Supervolcano” erupting about 28 Ma (location: east of Creede). The caldera is huge, something like 22 by 47 miles. The major ejecta from the La Garita explosion is termed the Fish Creek Tuff, a dacite by composition (high silica content). Geologists believe the Fish Creek Tuff occupies an area of ~1200 cubic miles. In contrast the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1980 produced ~0.25 cubic miles of ejecta. (Steven and others, 1976),
Around 25-26 Ma another volcano in the Creede area (current geography) blew its stack and then subsided forming a caldera. This action allowed mineral-rich hydrothermal solutions to rise toward the surface, cooling, and then depositing the rich metallic ores that later produced silver, lead, zinc, and other metals. Along with these ores the hot solutions cooled into quartz, including the lavender to purple, band of quartz termed the Amethyst Vein, and the sowbelly agate.
MinDat (November 2024) lists 95 different minerals from the Creede Mining District obtained from about 100 mines and prospects. However, most of the wealth came from the Holy Moses Mine (discovery mine), Empress Mine, the Amethyst Vein mines: Amethyst Mine, Bachelor Mine, Commodore Mine with the OH Vein, P Vein, Commodore #5 Mine, and the Happy Thought Mine, the Last Chance Mine, Nelson Tunnel, and the Park Regent Mine. Although production figures are a little fuzzy, the Creede District produced about 9,000 tons of lead, 2000+ tons of silver, 4,000 tons of zinc and lessor amounts of other minerals. Today the District is still in the mining business; however, the source of the “ore” is U. S. currency pulled from the pockets of thousands of visitors.
I picked up this specimen due to numerous, small, gemmy, sparkling, terminated quartz crystals. These sparks host several darker, almost appearing black, crystals of sphalerite (zinc sulfide) along with a couple of translucent crystals of greenish sphalerite.Width FOV ~6 mm. Collecting was in the "5th level, Commodore Mine."
Nice, semi-translucent, honey colored crystals of sphalerite with dull gray cubes of galena (lead sulfide)m collected from the Commodore Mine. Width FOV ~4.5 cm.
Interestingly, the mineral creedite [Ca3Al2(SO4)(OH)2F8 · 2H2O] did not come from the Creed Mining District but from the Colorado Fluorspar Company Mine at Wagon Wheel Gap about 10 miles southeast of Creede. The mine was active from 1911 to 1950 and produced fluorite for use as a flux in the open-hearth furnaces at the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company's steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado.
Beautiful, partially tarnished wire silver with a "peeling" top. Length of specimen ~1.1 cm. The Creede Mining District produces some of the best wire silver in the world.