New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

During the mid-1980s, I was coming back from Iron Mountain (looking for helvite) and needed to stop for a bush break. There was a road leading toward the Cuchillos. Went about a mile or so, and found some jasper with quartz pockets. In this material, there were some large drusy quartz casts after octahedral and dodecahedral fluorite, about an inch in size. I looked toward the Cuchillos and saw mine dumps, thinking these might prove interesting to track down. I made quite a few trips looking for the fluorite, and finally in 1992,I started finding some. In 1993, a friend from Maryland came out to collect. After we set up the tent, a blizzard hit. There was four inches of snow, 70 mph winds, the poles from the tent broke, we took everything out of the Ford Expedition and slept. Next morning, it was 20°. Hence, the name the Blizzard prospect. We found what I was looking for in 1993.

The geology of the area consists of Magdalena limestone, which has been intruded by Tertiary age volcanics, consisting of monozite and latite porphyrys, andesite and rhyolite dikes and plugs. The mines and prospects of the area are along the contact skarns with the limestones. Most of the fluorite is found along a silicified fault zone(?) showing stalactitic structures.

Crystals of fluorite to about an inch are found coated with an attractive drusy quartz. These are simple octahedrons. The only dodecahedrons were seen in an andasite plug to the northwest of the Blizzard prospect.

Some stripping tests were done with hydrofluoric acid, the fluorite is badly etched under the quartz. Small pockets with uncoated fluorite do form and the crystals are very bright. Colors are usually pastel, green, and purple, though in one spot, a very bright grass-green was found. And in another, small pink crystals were found.

Other minerals: quartz-drusy, jasper, and scepters to 3/4 of an inch. Small wulfenite crystals in one pocket, and several unknowns.