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Identity HelpOrphan Girl Mine, Butte Montana unknown

14th Jun 2012 02:37 UTCKarl Volkman Expert

While working through several rocks from Orphan Girl mine in Butte, Dad found several of these crystals. They are on an unidentified red/brown mineral that coats pale pink rhodochrosites. The rock is from the 2011 crosscut constructed in the Orphan Girl. Crystals are no more then about 2mm long

14th Jun 2012 03:06 UTCRonald John Gyllenhammer Expert

Hi Karl,

Does it fluoresce under LW? It may be to small to detect fluorescence but if so, you might be correct about Cerussite.

Ron

14th Jun 2012 03:27 UTCKarl Volkman Expert

They do show a pale yellowish cream fluorescence.

14th Jun 2012 03:41 UTCRonald John Gyllenhammer Expert

Hi Karl,

Did it fluoresce under LW only, SW only or both? Also, if you have many of these minute crystal and don't mind sacrificing one to the acids gods, Cerussite should effervesce in dilute HNO₃.

Ron

14th Jun 2012 04:12 UTCKarl Volkman Expert

Both long and short wave from what we can tell with our old light. We've only found three of the crystals at this point. We are rather reluctant to sacrifice any, and we don't actually have any nitric acid.

14th Jun 2012 05:13 UTCJohn Sobolewski Expert

The color, shape and striations, as well the fact that Galena was one of the species found at that mine, suggests to me that this is Cerussite. John S.

15th Jun 2012 09:25 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Another vote for cerussite.

15th Jun 2012 14:23 UTCBart Cannon

Back in the 70s and 80s I used park my Jeepster on the Orphan Girl waste rock pile when I got in to Butte too late to stop in a Pete Knudsen's house. I would sleep in the Jeepster.

I found an odd pair of women's shoes at the bottom of the waste rock pile. They were probably 100 years old and were designed for someone with what was once called a "clubfoot".

I took the shoes down to one of the entrances to a building on the Montana Tech campus and placed them on the flat rails of the entry to one of their buildings. I left them right there, but I did take a creepy photograph of them. It was a 35mm slide, and will be hard to re-locate, but maybe worth the effort since there is some interest in the Orphan Girl on Mindat.

My interests these days is in early mining history of the U.S. Especially the experiences of children in mining camps. They had nothing to do but join gangs and get into mischief. Our Monte Cristo camp had many high angle tramlines. The kids would hide in the ore buckets and get a free ride up to the high peaks. There is an excellent book about those kids. Written by Elof someone. "The Coffee Chased us Up". Still don't understand the title.

~bart

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