Mammoth Mine, Tintic District, Juab County, Utah USA Field Trip #159 and #160

We met at the Mammoth Mine dumps. Very old dumps from early mining operations. One of the collectors was either very intelligent, or thought he knew it all, as he was proclaiming one rare mineral after another he was finding. After I found out who he was, I do think he was probably an authority on the mine and its products. We were collecting on an area of the dump where there were many types of copper arsenates. The dump was hard to dig into, because all of the overburden would fall quickly into our holes. It became pretty frustrating. We collected here for a while, and then moved to the lower dump. There I was able to find some nice CLINOCLASE and TYROLITE, which were rare classic minerals to have from the Mammoth Mine. One of the collectors found some very showy TYROLITE Crystals. We were all sad to see that one of our friends there was going back to his car, lost his footing, and literally threw his entire day of collecting into the air as he fell. He lost much of his smaller best micromount pieces he worked so had to obtain.

I returned a couple of weeks later alone, (always a bad idea to collect alone). It was summer, and I worried about the heat, but while I was there I was very comfortable. I thought it was interesting how during the mining operation, this material was pulled out, from way below the surface of the mountain, in an area that is not now known, nor accessible to anyone now, and left in a pile, protected for us to go through at this time to find great and beautiful and interesting specimens.

I returned to the lower dump, where I was able to pull out some pretty large boulders of material, and fresh material. I did pretty well. I enjoyed myself today.