New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

As a source of crystallized specimens for the mineral purist, Wyoming does not rank very high; it is much better known to the lapidary for varieties of agate and nephrite. There are, however, a number of interesting mineral localities throughout the state. These are generally associated with commercial mining of copper, iron, trona, and uranium or the rare earths. Some of the new minerals first discovered in Wyoming are bradleyite, shortite, loughlinite, wegscheiderite, mckelveyite, norsethite, zellerite, and metazellerite. In this talk, two principal mining areas are discussed in detail: the Sunrise iron mine in the Hartville uplift and the copper district surrounding Encampment.

The Hartville mining area began its history as a source of hematite for ceremonial paint for native Americans. Later it enjoyed a brief period as a copper mining locality when various copper ores were discovered by settlers moving west. Finally, a very large scale iron mining operation was carried out until 1981. Some of the minerals found during this mining were similar to those found in the English iron mining operations. The mines are now closed but collecting on the dumps was possible until last year when the owner, Colorado Fuel and Iron, fenced and barricaded the entire area.

The copper mining district surrounding Encampment has produced some very interesting minerals, including lorandite and sperrylite, from the New Rambler mine where copper was mined from a covellite orebody. At one time the Ferris-Haggerty mine in the Sierra Madre mountains west of Encampment boasted a 16-mile-long tramway to deliver copper ore to the smelter in Encampment. Low-level copper and rare-earth mining was carried out by the Platt family on their ranch until about 1970. Some of the minerals found in these latter operations will be described and illustrat¬ed.