The (not so famous) Red Cloud Mine
Mineral Matters #575
A couple of years ago, Scott Braley gave a Zoom talk on the Red Cloud Mines in New Mexico. Very different mine to the famous Red Cloud Mine in Arizona that produces those exceptional red wulfenites.
I think Scott has presented to a few groups on the locality (in fact, two very close localities, the Red Cloud copper Mine, and the Red Cloud Fluorite Mine).
Scott sent me a few specimens a bit later on, and a bag of “gravel” from one of the dumps. I didn’t weigh it but I reckon there was a kilogram or two. I have only just got round to looking at this gravel. Yes, slack of me, I know!
The material came from the same place as material that Scott has recovered very nice specimens from. It was very dirty, and took a fair amount of cleaning. I rinsed it in a container, then picked out anything that looked interesting, put that through the ultrasonic cleaner, then picked out the better stuff again.
There are a few nice specimens of chrysocolla, a couple of wufenites, purple fluorite, mottramite, and more. Hopefully, I will get to photograph some of it soon.
In the meantime, here is a shot of the first pass wash, and some of the pieces picked out to go through the next stage.
I will have a fairly in-depth article on the locality in the February issue of the Monthly Mineral Chronicles.
Be on the lookout for yellow-green hexagonal bastnaesite xls. They are often frozen in the matrix, but sometimes you get them growing in small cavities. Micro to a few mm in size.
I’d like to see an article on the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstitions.