THREE NEW MINERALS FROM NEW MEXICO: RAY, VIRGIL & STUART

 

I was perusing articles from www.earth.com and ran across great news for RMFMS rockhounds. Geologists have discovered three new minerals from Cookes Peak in Luna County, New Mexico. According to MinDat.org “Cookes Peak is a 2,563 m (8,408 ft) high granodiorite mountain peak located approximately 27 km (17 miles) N of the city of Deming. Cookes Peak Mining District is a lead-zinc-silver mining district that produced about $4.2 million worth of ore between 1876 and 1965 from carbonate replacements and veins… Economic mineral deposits in the Cookes Range include galena (lead), sphalerite (zinc), silver, copper, gold, manganese, and fluorite.” However, the ore-depositing hydrothermal solutions also left behind oxidized cavities containing rare molybdic acid hydrate minerals: raydemarkite MoO₃-H₂O (Triclinic lattice); virgilluethite MoO₃-H₂O (Monoclinic sheet structure); and stunorthropite {NH₄}₄[Mo₂O₆(MoO₄)₂]. Now, I don’t even pretend to understand anything about the hydrated forms of molybdenum trioxide; however, I understand the origins of the mineral names. And these origins should excite rockhounds.

Ray DeMark seems to have spent several lifetimes exploring and collecting minerals from New Mexico but is best known as the claim owner of the Blanchard Mine who is always willing to lead rock/mineral clubs on a collecting foray. The Blanchard Mine, part of the Hansonberg Mining District, is located in the Rio Grande Rift Zone southeast of Socorro. Every collector who has followed Ray into the mine area has come away with a collecting bag stuffed with fluorite, galena, barite, brochantite, and others, including linerite (if lucky). The Mine is best known for specimens of electric blue fluorite (Bingham Blue), and for Ray DeMark and his unlimited generosity of sharing with rockhounds.

Virgilluethite was named for Dr. Virgil W. Lueth, emeritus senior mineralogist/economic geologist from the New Mexico Bureau of Geology.  Rockhounds and mineralogists will recognize Virgil as the former director of the Bureau’s Mineral Museum from 1994 to 2022 and his leadership in the Museum’s premiere annual event, the New Mexico Mineral Symposium. The Symposium is unique in that it provides a forum for both professionals and amateurs to share information and knowledge of mineral occurrences. During Virgil’s tenure with the Symposium, he seemed to be everywhere greeting visitors, showing off the collections, and making certain the coffee arrived on time. The 45^th Symposium will be held on November 7-9, 2025.

Stunorthropite was named for Dr. Stuart A. Northrop (1904–1994), a professor of geology at the University of New Mexico from 1928 to 1969. He is the author of Minerals of New Mexico, the most comprehensive work on the state’s mineralogy. First published in 1944, it has undergone several major revisions and is currently in its third edition. In 2016 the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico launched the initial Dr. Stuart A. Northrop Distinguished Lecture Series noting contributions to the UNM Department of Geology during his long tenure as Chairman (1929-1961) were profound. He laid the foundation of the present department, including the creation of the MS and PhD programs and the construction of the department's building, which now bears his name.

So, there it is—three new minerals from New Mexico honoring three of the best known RMFMS rockhounds/geologists from the Land of Enchantment.  Fantastic photos of the three new minerals may be seen at https://www.nmt.edu/news/2025/new-minerals.php.   

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ANTIMONY?

 

Two small items have triggered this report: 1) I belong to the Baltimore Mineral Club and at our last meeting we talked (by ZOOM) about the element antimony and the mineral stibnite; and 2) a former student of mine, now living in Alaska, told me that the June 5^th edition of dermoitcole.com/reporting from Alaska/ had a story about trucking antimony ore from Alaska to a smelter in Montana. Sure enough, the story stated there is a “push to mine antimony in the Fairbanks area, as well as in Tok and off the Denali Highway. With export restrictions by China, the price of antimony has soared in the past year from $13,000 a ton to ~$50,000 per ton. U.S. Antimony says it’s looking to truck antimony ore some 2,000 miles from Alaska to its processing plant in Montana. That operation could start as soon as September.”

Wow, that’s interesting. So, where does the U.S. currently mine stibnite, the major ore of antimony?  It seems that at the present time there are no antimony-producing mines in the U.S.  That little tidbit led me to another story in Forbes.com about the fact that without antimony produced here in the United States, the outcome of World War II might have turned out differently. Read on.

No, really, it could have. Antimony is a strategic critical mineral that is used in all manner of military applications, including the manufacture of armor piercing bullets, night vision goggles, infrared sensors, precision optics, laser sighting, explosive formulations, hardened lead for bullets and shrapnel, ammunition primers, tracer ammunition, nuclear weapons and production, tritium production, flares, military clothing, and communication equipment. It is the key element in the creation of tungsten steel and the hardening of lead bullets, two of its most crucial applications during WWII.

Prior to the buildup to the War, the United States was almost entirely dependent on China for its supply of antimony. When that supply was cut off by Japan, America had to find another source of this key mineral. Fortunately for the U.S. at that time, a gold mine in central Idaho called the Stibnite Mine was able to step up production of the antimony that is an element in the mine’s ore and helped fill the void.

The Stibnite mine ended up producing fully 90% of America’s demand for antimony for the duration of the War and was key to producing 40% of the tungsten steel needed for the military effort. Following the War, output from the Stibnite Mine gradually declined, and its operations were shut down entirely in 1997.

Interesting, eh? Read on from Metaltechnews.com.

So back to today’s world where United States Antimony owns and operates an antimony smelter in Montana – the only facility on American soil designed to upgrade raw antimony feedstock into antimony oxide used to make flame-resistant compounds for home and military use, antimony metal for bearings and artillery, and antimony trisulfide for ammunition. But as noted, the U.S. does not mine antimony. That means the Montana-based company is reliant on imports from Mexico and other countries for the raw materials to feed its smelter. So maybe Alaska does not seem so far away from Montana.

Today, the U.S. finds itself once again wholly reliant on other countries for its antimony needs, most heavily China and to a lesser extent, Russia (before the War in Ukraine). The global demand for antimony in the coming years cannot be met from current supplies. If true, this will impact all of us in a variety of ways, because antimony is a crucial element in far more than just military applications.

However, the News gets worse since at the end of last year China banned exports of antimony to the U.S. Considering that China controls roughly half of the global antimony production – Tajikistan and Russia account for another 30% of global supply – this ban leaves the U.S. with few options for this critical and strategic metalloid.

 

From Oilprice.com we learn that after China banned exports to the U.S. Prices had already doubled in the second half of 2024 since China said in August that companies would need to apply for export licenses to export antimony ore, metals, oxides, hydrides, and other related products. 

 

The ban reverberated through the supply chains and is raising costs for battery makers with expensive and difficult-to-find supply.  

In the global antimony market, China is not only the top producer, but also boasts the majority of antimony processing facilities, somewhat analogous to China’s role in REEs production, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

 

So, that led me to this story from USantimony.com. On March 17, 2025, a two-container international shipment of approximately fifty (50) tons of stibnite (antimony) ore, departed the port of loading in Melbourne, Australia, with the final destination and port of discharge to be at the Port of Manzanilla, Mexico for ultimate delivery to the United States Antimony Corporation ("the Company") Madero Smelter. The Company made partial payment on the value of the shipment’s invoice, equaling $715,413 USD, ahead of the actual time of departure as called for under the existing contract. Evergreen Shipping Agency (Australia) PTY Ltd., the shipping agency, routed the vessel through The Port of Ningbo-Zhoushan in China. The vessel’s actual time of arrival in Ningbo was April 14, 2025. All necessary payments and required paperwork were properly accounted for. Chinese Customs withheld these two containers carrying stibnite (antimony) ore for approximately eighty-two (82) days with no apparent reason provided to all parties involved

On June 23, 2025, the Company was informed that Chinese Customs finally agreed to release the containers on the condition that they be returned to their point of origin/loading dock in Australia. The Chinese Customs would not release the shipment to their intended final destination to the Port of Manzanillo for their final delivery location at the Company’s Madero Smelter. The Company can only assume this was either due to the contents being antimony ore, or the owner name, US Antimony Corporation, or possibly both. China previously announced, back in September of last year, a ban on all shipments of antimony ore and finished products originating from China and exported to any country in the world, including the United States.

 

Forbes.com has given us an interesting scenario: consider antimony’s  usage in the high-tech sector, where it is a key ingredient in semi-conductors, circuit boards, electric switches, fluorescent lighting, high quality clear glass and lithium-ion batteries. No antimony, no iPhones. No hi-definition TVs. No modern kitchen appliances, all of which make use of digital circuitry. Oh, and that car you’re thinking about buying? Sorry.

Now, consider this: There can be no “energy transition” without adequate supplies of antimony. That thick, heavy glass used in solar panels? It’s made with antimony. Those 300 to 700 foot-tall windmills that sporadically produce electricity? Made with antimony. Antimony is a key element in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, as mentioned above, but even more crucial is the fact that it is integral to the development of the next-generation liquid metal batteries that, as Ecclestone pointed out during the webinar, hold the key to truly scalable energy storage for wind and solar power.

It seems almost unbelievable that this country has allowed itself to become almost 100% dependent on imports of a metal integral to so many applications as antimony. Of course, the U.S. is also in a similar situation related to better-known critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are also key to the production of solar panels, wind turbines and lithium-ion batteries.

The last news that I could find is that United States Antimony Corporation (NYSE American: UAMY) is bringing antimony mining back to the U.S. The company recently announced that it has started buying land and mining claims near its old smelter in Thompson Falls, Montana. This move could help reduce America’s heavy dependence on foreign sources of antimony---when it finally starts production.

Above information in this article, compiled in mid-July, 2025, has been taken from various sources: Oilprice.com, Forbes.com, USGS.gov, North of 60 Mining News, Reuters.com, dermoitcole.com, usantimony.com. metaltechnews.com. Want to learn more? Get on a web browser and start hunting—there are hundreds of dependable (seemly) articles in corporate reports, government reports and articles, journals, newspapers, and you name it. Kind of scary!

"GOING UP THE COUNTRY": COLLECTING COQUIMBITE: SAN RAFAEL SWELL

I have noted in other articles about my academic move from Vermillion, SD, to Salt Lake City, UT. It was the case of a small-town Kansas kid moving west to the mountains of his youthful dreams. How many times had he ogled at the advertisements in the back pages of “outdoor’ magazines promising a job as a “forest ranger” or maybe even a ”government trapper?” How many times during his high school and undergrad days had he applied for a summer position in one of the national forests---any job would do?  But, as usual, he spent his hot Kansas summers working at his father’s gasoline station and/or driving a tractor for his uncle. But hey, it was money in the bank.

Now a journey to the mountains was “for real” and I (along with a new youthful bride) were off to follow the mountain men explorers, although as a geologist rather than a beaver trapper. There were so many new places with rocks and fossils and peaks and deserts that were absent in the Plains. What a fantastic time to be a geologist but also realizing that there was so much to learn. Those feelings are still with me today!

Early on in my University of Utah days one of my fellow grad students suggested a long Saturday field trip to the San Rafael Swell near Price, Utah. So off we go with rock hammers, lunch, cameras, and for me—a great deal of excitement. At that point in my life, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what the Swell was, nor what we would see on a field trip. All was new; most rockhounds can attest to this thrill building up as the week winds down for a Saturday field trip!

Cliffs of Cretaceous rocks forming a western boundary to the Swell.
 

After a main highway sojourn, we finally turned onto a gravel/dirt road I became absolutely amazed at the sights. To the west were the towering blue to blue-gray cliffs of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. These marine rocks were part of the Western Interior Seaway that once extended from the Arctic Ocean south to the Gulf of Mexico and from Utah through Kansas (in today’s geographic terminology). As we traversed down section into the Swell, I could recognize the older Cretaceous Cedar Mountain and Dakota/Naturita Formations, the Jurassic dinosaur-bearing Morrison Formation and then into the majestic red rocks of Jurassic, Triassic, and Permian age complete with deep canyons, high cliffs, and lookouts where you could gaze for tens of miles without seeing human habitation. While eating lunch on a large boulder in the lazy warm sun I think my spouse had an epiphany on why I wanted to become a professional geologist and work “in the West.” And so, she accompanied me almost every summer for 20 years as I hauled my undergrad students around the “West” to help me with research projects, or to direct grad students on their own projects. Just as I fell in love with the Black Hills during my South Dakota days, I fell head over heels for the Colorado Plateau and especially the San Rafael Swell.

  

Rocks to impress a flatlander and love forever.
  

Geologically, the southwest quadrant of Utah, part of the Colorado Plateau Physiographic Province, is dominated by several small anticlinal uplifts with intervening synclinal basins.  By small, I mean they do not approach the size of time-related (Laramide Orogeny) mountain ranges such as the Uinta Range but still extend tens of miles in length.  The “big” anticlinal mountains expose Precambrian rocks in the center that usually form the high peaks.  The “smaller” upwarps usually have rocks no older than Pennsylvanian in the center.  However, there are some spectacular folds and “bent” rocks within these upwarps. The best-known upwarp features in Utah are the Monument Upwarp, the San Rafael Swell (a large anticlinal uplift with a steeply dipping and folded eastern margin termed the San Rafael Reef) and the Circle Cliffs Uplift (a north-south doubly-plunging anticline with a steeply dipping (almost vertical) eastern margin, the Waterpocket Fold).  These large upwarps “were formed by tangential compressional forces that were episodically repeated throughout the Phanerozoic [post Precambrian] and most magnificently accentuated by Laramide and younger tectonism” (Stevenson, 2000).

 

Laramide anticlinal uplifts centered around Four Corners Region (X).  Original source unknown but commonly attributed to Don Barrs.

 

Google Earth© image of “bean-shaped” San Rafael Swell in Emery County, Utah. The San Rafael Reef (steeply dipping beds) is the “toothed” area in the southeast.  To a small town flatlander like me, the scenery I saw that 1967 day in the Swell was almost overwhelming. I was swimming in sensory overload and could not quite contemplate what was going on. As a want-ta-be geologist I had a thousand questions and was thinking about a future dissertation project—and about blew my mind. The small knob was the site of the Rough Road Quarry in the Cedar Mountain Formation.  See Eaton and Nelson in References Cited.  Well, I never settled on a dissertation project in the Swell but later spent the better part of three years hunting for Cretaceous mammals in the Cedar Mountain Formation and supervising four MS students working on theses. My project turned out reasonably well as the Rough Road Quarry produced numerous small mammal, reptile, and “fish” specimens. This work was started when mammals were almost unknown in the Early Cretaceous rocks of the U.S. and before the famous Utahraptor  discovery in the Cedar Mountain near Moab set off a massive paleontological hunt in the unit. About the same time as my work in the late 1980s-early1990s paleontologists from Weber State University and the University of Oklahoma hit the jackpot with several new quarries, and major finds of mammals, in the unit. As for me, I ventured over to the world of university administration. During those early years of my stay at the University of Utah all roads into the Swell were essentially graded native rock, sediment and “dirt.” I was stranded and “stuck” more than once when the bentonitic sediment became wet. Visitors were few and the camping and exploring were great and so for the following 20 years the Swell was our “go to” place to escape. I was especially drawn to the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry where Jim Madsen, my good friend and research companion, spent most of his summer months. The University of Utah scientists began studies on San Rafael Swell dinosaurs in the 1920s followed by paleontologists from Princeton University. In 1960 the University of Utah commenced a 5-year project with several cooperating schools under the administrative leadership of Dr. William Lee Stokes and field leadership of Madsen. In those days the quarry was protected from the elements by a corrugated roof structure with few other accommodations. Today the Quarry and a few surrounding acres have been designated as Dinosaur National Monument and a new museum-like building has been constructed. Over the years, bones have been taken from the quarry representing at least 70 different animals and 11 species. Cast and original skeletons assembled from these bones are on display in over 60 museums worldwide. Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in Jurassic National Monument. Public Domain photo by Richard M. Warnick. The Swell opened for travelers to catch sight of the fantastic scenery when I-70 in Utah was partially completed and opened as two lanes in late 1970. However, total construction and dedication was not completed until 1990. The Swell is still a rather uncrowded hunk of land perhaps best known by road warriors as the longest stretch of Interstate highway, 110 miles between Salina and Green River, without any urban development or services for visitors—fill up the gasoline tank before travel.  I suppose most people traversing through the Swell, especially those in a hurry and those without an appreciation for desert scenery, might remember the gate to the eastern section. Here, I-70 cuts through the upturned rock known as the San Rafael Reef. It is an amazing bit of travel through Jurassic and Triassic rocks.           Driving I-70 through the upturned rocks of the San Rafael Reef.  Rockhounding in the Swell is sort of a mixed bag. MinDat lists a total of 83 valid minerals (Type Localities for three uranium minerals) found in the San Rafael Swell Mining District, a fishhook shaped area covering the eastern and southern exposures. Research by thediggings dot com noted the following number of mines and prospects in the District: includes 5493 nearby claims—39 active and 5454 closed—and 183 nearby mines—49 occurrences, 28 prospects, and 106 producers.  Virtually all  mines and prospects were after uranium and/or vanadium from the Chinle Formation with perhaps a little copper thrown in, maybe a tad of zinc and lead. After World War II  the need for uranium to fund the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) projects created a large boom in the late 1940’s and 1950’s and brought thousands of prospectors, miners and merchants to Utah, including a ‘rags-to-riches” Texan by the name of Charlie Steen.  His discovery, in 1952, of the Mi Vida (My Life) mine near Moab triggered a “uranium rush” to the Colorado Plateau that rivaled the fabled gold rushes of the 1800’s.  School teachers, insurance brokers, used car salesmen, and shoe clerks around the nation converged on the Colorado Plateau to seek their fortune.  Even a group of high school students staked forty claims and later sold them for $15,000.  By the mid-1950s, almost six hundred producers on the Colorado Plateau were shipping uranium ore.  Employment in the industry topped 8,000 workers in the mines and mills.  Another bonanza in penny uranium stock established Salt Lake City as The Wall Street of Uranium.  The AEC had turned the tap and caused a flood. By 1960 Utah was producing in excess of 6.5 million pounds of uranium; however, in 1964 the AEC decided to stop purchasing uranium and the bust cycle was on (Ringholz, 2009), although there have been a few minor boom cycles in the last 50 years.  I sort of refuse to touch most radioactive minerals and have never really been interested in collecting such, especially specimens containing any sort of uranium. In fact, my collecting habits in the Swell have been tied to fossils and various types of micro crystalline quartz with a few pieces of “petrified” wood thrown in. However, I have enjoyed taking a look at several of the abandoned uranium/vanadium mines but have never ventured near the mine entrances. I am quite claustrophobic and don’t want to take any chance of a poisonous gas leaking out. In other words, I could/would not work in the mining industry where underground journeys were required. I am certain this habit kept me from finding a plethora of nifty mineral specimens! The "old" bridge crossing the San Rafael River in the middle of the Swell. It was infamous for moaning and groaning and sagging whenever a car slowly crept from one bank to the other. A new ugly, concrete bridge, seen to the left, was offered as a replacement.  Calf Mesa is a well know area in the northern part of the large San Rafael Mining District, not far from the "old bridge". The Rim of the Mesa is mostly composed of the Entrada Formation although small “slivers” of the overlying Curtis Formation may be present. Underlying the Entrada is the Chinle Formation that contains a sandstone/conglomeratic, channel-fill, unit variously referred to as the Shinarump Member or the Moss Back Member that are/were the major producers of uranium and vanadium in the San Rafael Swell. A cluster of mines along the side of the Mesa has produced 28 valid minerals according to MinDat. The best known of the Calf Mesa Mines is the Dexter #7. According MinDat the Mine, from 1950 through 1957, produced more than 500 tons of ore which averaged about 0.27 percent Uranium 308 and 0.05 percent Vanadium 205. Today the Mine is long abandoned; however, the large scattering of mine equipment, the ease of locating and accessing the mine (if you like to walk), and the chance of collecting rare to uncommon iron sulfate minerals such as butlerite, copiapite, coquimbite, krausite, melanterite, romerite, voltaite, and goldichite (the Type Locality) attracts a variety of specimen collectors. However, it now appears that rockhounds have company at Calf Mesa as ” Anfield Energy Inc., a uranium and vanadium mining company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, [Anfield purchased in late 2024 by Isoenergy Ltd.] has purchased a 100 percent interest in 26 unpatented mining claims of the Calf Mesa uranium project, located in Emery County” (Salt Lake Business Journal, 14 January 2023).   The rim of Calf Mesa. Photo courtesy of Dennis Udink, Price, UT  Probably the most collectable mineral from the Dexter #7 is the uncommon, hydrated, iron sulfate coquimbite: AlFe3(SO4)6(H2O)12·6H2O. Crystals are colorless to lavender to purple to pink to greenish to yellowish---often in the same specimen. They usually are short prismatic with small unequal pyramidal faces. Crystals are transparent, sub-vitreous to resinous and quite soft at 2.0-2.5 (Mohs), brittle with a sub0conchoidal fracture and a whit streak. They would, at first, be tough to identify (for an old plugger like me) unless one knew the collecting locality—arid region as a secondary mineral in oxidized sulfide deposits. It also may form in volcanic fumaroles and/or in underground mine fires. Whatever the case, once one sees the crystals the identity seems to stick in your mind. Clear to light purple or lavender sub-millimeter crystals of coquimbite (color varies across specimen). Also present are the hydrated iron sulfates halotrichite (H white fibrous encrustations), voltaite (V dark green to mostly "black"), romerite (R brownish orange), and a yellow unknown mineral, probably copiapite (?C) but possibly some goldichite? These latter minerals are even smaller than the coquimbite and tough to identify. Searching for fossils in the mudstone outcrops of the Cedar Mountain Formation. Take your canteen and a snack and a Brunton.  There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation.  Edward Abbey  REFERENCES CITED  Ringholz, R. C., 2009, Utah’s Uranium Boom in Beehive 16, Utah History to Go:  http://historytogo.utah.gov/    *Going up the country is the title of a song by Canned Heat

OF INTEREST

Pomes, Michael L., "Stratigraphy, Paleontology and Paleobiogeography of Lower Vertebrates from the Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous), Emery County, Utah" (1988). Master's Thesis.

Conley, Steven J., "Stratigraphy and Depositional Environment of the Buckhorn Conglomerate Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous), Central Utah" (1986). Master's Thesis.

Crooks, Deborah M., "Petrology and Stratigraphy of the Morrison (Upper Jurassic) and Cedar Mountain (Lower Cretaceous) Formations, Emery County, Utah" (1986). Master's Thesis..

Hunter, David A., “Stratigraphy, Sedimentation, and Paleoenvironment of the Cedar Mountain Formation and the Dakota Sandstone (Cretaceous) in West-Central Emery County, Utah” (1990). Master's Thesis.

Nelson, M. E., and Crooks, D. M., 1987, Stratigraphy and paleontology of the Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous), eastern Emery County, Utah, in Averett, W. R., editor, Paleontology of the Dinosaur Triangle--guidebook for 1987 field trip: Grand Junction, Colorado, Museum of Western Colorado, p. 55-63

Eaton, J.G. & Nelson, M.E.  1991.  Multituberculate mammals from the lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain  Formation, San Rafael Swell, Utah.  Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming, 20:1-12.