New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

For the last 15 years I have been spending about 6 months a year, from May through October, in the Michigan Copper Country. My time is spent exploring old mine sites and collecting minerals along with eating pasties. I was born and raised in “da UP” as us “Yoopers” call it and friends of mine ask me why I don’t move back permanently. I tell them that I enjoy my 6 months in the Keweenaw but the winters are long and severe. At my age I don’t like the cold weather and the overabundance of snow. I also don’t like waking up in the morning and facing snow-blowing to get to my vehicle to go and get more beer. The weather can be very gloomy and depressing and you may not see the sun for a couple of weeks at a time. That is why I’m in Magdalena, New Mexico, in the winter months. I like to brag to people that Magdalena has 325 days of sunshine per year and the other 40 aren’t too bad.

In 2001, I had a full-length article titled “The Copper-Bearing Conglomerate Lodes of the Michigan Copper District” that appeared in the May/June issue of Rocks & Minerals. In researching for the article, I became very interested in the copper-bearing conglomerate lodes which have only increased over the years. I started to study the physical makeup of the conglomerate beds along with alteration patterns and mineralogy. This led me to collect larger specimens of conglomerate, some up to a couple of hundred pounds in weight, for study and photography. I started to haul more and more chunks of conglomerate home to preserve before the mine dump was crushed. Other collectors noticed my strange collecting habits and started called me the “Conglomerate Kid” along with other names... In 2016, I purchased a 36-inch diamond slab saw for cutting the larger chunks and this has opened up a whole new world. Some of the chunks I have collected run as much as 40–50% copper and are quite stunning when cut.

For the last 5 years, collecting in the Copper Country has been on the downswing due mainly to more “No Trespassing” signs being posted on properties due to liability concerns. Mine dumps are being crushed at an alarming rate for county road repair and construction of roads in the wilderness for the logging industry. On the positive side, this supplies fresh material but once it is gone, that is it.

Still, there are new finds made every year. These finds include “float” copper and copper-beating conglomerate that are recovered with the use of metal detectors. There have also been a few spectacular finds of crystallized native silver and copper along with some stunning micro crystals of various minerals. These and other mineralogical topics of interest will be discussed in this presentation.