New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Iron Mountain is located approximately 28 miles northwest of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, on the border between Socorro and Sierra Counties. It has been intensely explored and mined on a small scale due to the occurrence of magnetite, fluorite, and beryllium and tungsten-bearing minerals. The beryllium mineral helvite was first noted in November 1941 by L.W. Strock during an examination of ores.

Previous investigations and analyses of the minerals in the area have attributed all of the beryllium present to the minerals helvite and danalite and trace amounts in garnets, idocrase, chlorite and members of the epidote group.

Beryl, however, has now been positively identified from what has been termed the Scheelamite area of the North Peak section of Iron Mountain. In October 1978, numerous small prismatic crystals of an opaque, cerulean blue mineral were recovered from this area. The rock at this location is a coarsely crystalline tactite in which large euhedral crystals of helvite, fluorite and albite occur in vugs, intimately associated with more finely crystalline quartz, chamoisite and hematite. Subsequently, several transparent, aquamarine colored, hexagonal prisms were recovered from the same area. These transparent crystals were found as inclusions in clear and purple fluorite. The opaque crystals are frequently surrounded by an alteration rim of helvite crystals. Maximum dimensions of the opaque beryl crystals have been 3x10 mm.

In light of the relative abundance of beryl in the Scheelamite area of Iron Mountain, further explorations could reasonably expect to reveal additional occurrences.