New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Turquoise had been mined in southwestern New Mexico by Indians long before the first settlers arrived. After the arrival of the settlers, many deposits were mined commercially. Some of these became famous for the quality and quantity of the turquoise, such as the Azure mine at Tyrone, the mines at Hatchi¬ta, and of course, the Chino pit at Santa Rita. The introduction of open-pit mining brought many other species to light. Occur¬rences at the Tyrone mine were reported at the 1986 symposium, but since then several new occurrences have been noted.

The copper phosphates, libethenite and pseudomalachite, were found recently at the 85 mine near Lordsburg.

Another occurrence of phosphates was noted recently at Tyrone along the same trend that hosted an earlier suite of cacoxenite, chalcosiderite, apatite, wavellite, and torbernite. This latest occurrence also contains cacoxenite along with strengite and leucophosphite.

Several interesting occurrences have been noted at the Santa Rita mine recently. A limited occurrence of beraunite, laubman¬nite and leucophosphite was discovered this summer in the Town-site Island area of the pit. This may be the first reported occurrence of these species in New Mexico. In another area of the pit, South Pit, excellent specimens of libethenite, apatite, and pseudomalachite were found. Apatite crystals have also been found in the Townsite Island area.