(Vanadinite on calcite)
Near the Colorado River, in the middle of the Arizona desert lie two famous mines, the Red Cloud Mine and the Geronimo Mine. In October I went out to visit both with my club, Mineralogical Society of Southern California. Here’s how it went.
Getting to the two mines is a difficult trek. From highway 95 it is about a 1.5 hour drive over rough, rocky roads and sandy washes. Just past the lakeside community of Martinez Lake is where the road becomes treacherous and requires a 4WD or high clearance vehicle.
After navigating the road, the Red Cloud Mine is a sight for sore eyes. I can only imagine how the old timers must have felt making that trek on a horse or mule.
Upon arrival Roger, the caretaker and miner greets you and will have you gather around the common table to show you what you will be looking for. During this time he also offers to sell some of their nice specimens for sale.
As is typical for these types of digs, waivers are signed and fees are paid, then you are taken out to where you are going to be digging for the day. Roger will give you a brief explanation of the rock and what you are looking for and then it's off to work!
The Geronimo Mine
The Geronimo Mine aka Pure Potential Mine, is about 1 mile north of the Red Cloud Mine. It lies on the same fault that the Red Cloud Mine is on, but produces nicer vanadinite specimens, while the Red Cloud Mine is more known for it’s amazing wulfenite specimens.
The club event organizer and I decided to go here on the first day while the rest of the rockhounds went to the Red Cloud Mine. This proved to be a great decision, not only because it reduced the dust in the mine for us, but as we would find out the next day, we were allowed into the vein area of the Red Cloud Mine high up on the mine wall.
The entrance into the Geronimo Mine is a 20′ vertical shaft to the first level. Then you descend about another 12′ on a decline ladder to a final platform with another 10′ vertical ladder. At this point you are in the mine in the main chamber.
There is a drift to the left that goes on for about 40′. A decline in front of you that leads to the current workings and a drift to the right that winds down eventually leading you to the current workings as well.
Taking the drift to the right you immediately encounter veins and vugs of fluorite, calcite & vanadinite.
The fluorite in this area is a blue/green and fluoresces nicely. It runs in seams with the occasional cubic crystal visible. The nicer specimens will have vanadinite attached however these are not common.
About 200′ into the right drift the tunnel makes a 90degree turn left into a decline. This is where the hanging wall is clearly visible above your head. Here is where we found our best vanadinite specimens. They were attached to large chunks of the vein that had been dislodged from the hanging wall and had fallen to the floor to be picked over.
Just past this location an incline drift to the left is where the miners are currently digging. This is also the area that ties into the main chamber via the incline/decline ladder mentioned earlier. The walls and ceiling here are littered with red and orange druzy vanadinite. Occasionally the veins will open up to pockets large enough to produce full crystals several millimeters long.
Mining this material takes time and the right tools. The calcite and quartz matrix is very hard. Even a 3lb sludge hammer and cold chisel have little effect on it. The easiest way to mine is to find veins and vugs that have a softer, porous surrounding matrix. Occasionally you may find a weak spot in the rock that will enable you to cleave off a large chunk, but you time is better spent looking for the vugs & veins.
After about 7 hours of mining we called it a day and headed back to camp at the Red Cloud Mine. During the night Roger brought out his powerful UV light and we scoured the dumps for willemite(yellow), fluorite(blue/purple) & calcite(pink) like the picture below.
The Red Cloud Mine
The Red Cloud Mine consists of three parts, the dump(shown above), the open pit and the underground workings. The underground portion is closed to the public so I will focus on the open pit section & the dumps.
The dumps are pretty substantial. They are littered with wulfenite, willemite, calcite and fluorite. You'll be able to find any of the above mentioned minerals without too much work, however you will need to crack open rocks to find wulfenite specimens though. These dumps are several feet deep and provide a good area for beginners or the less physically active people to collect at.
The open pit is where the good specimens are to be found. In the above photo you can see the contact zone just about center of the photo, the darker brown to the lighter cream rock. The Wulfenite bearing ore is on the left side of the photo, browner area. The caretaker is mining high up on a bench(cut out area) littered with wulfenite. Much of the rock however rolls down the slope when it is being chipped away so good specimens and rough can be found in the bottom of the pit too.
The benches go from a very hard matrix to a soft, crumbly one of which wulfenite can be found in.
It really didn't take us long to find incredible specimens. We just had to find the right zone. There is wulfenite all over, but some of the host rock is so hard you need power tools to break the rock up. In about 15 minutes of looking we found the area Roger had been mining and got to work.
Unfortunately we didn't find any crystals over 1", but we found amazing clusters!
Due to the intense mining the day before we were exhausted by noon and decided to call it a day. It was a decision we were ok with though since we had collected so many specimens. It did however make us put this location down as a spot to re-visit in 2021. Due to the intense heat it will have to be early spring or late fall though.
If you are interested in digging at the Red Cloud Mine or the Geronimo(Pure Potential) Mine you should contact them before heading out – geoexplorer2003 at yahoo.com. Each dig site costs $20 but are both well worth the cost and drive out.
Information regarding minerals available at the Red Cloud Mine & Geronimo Mine can be found on Mindat.org, https://www.mindat.org/loc-3348.html
For a more in-depth look at the history and geology of the mine see Collector’s Edge write up about their time spent mining there. https://collectorsedge.com/legacy/red-cloud-mine-la-paz-county-arizona-usa/
All pictures were taken by me. Each specimen shown was personally dug out of the mines by me except for the 1st wulfenite specimen in the white box.
Thanks for reading!