Berkshire Copper Mine, Berkshire, Franklin County, Vermont, USAi

Regional Level Types
Berkshire Copper Mine	Mine
Berkshire	Township
Franklin County	County
Vermont	State
USA	Country

The Berkshire Copper Mine was operated by the Vermont and Boston Mining Company sometime ago. It is reached by going north 1 1/2 miles from Berkshire and taking a sharp right turn on a narrow dirt road. Proceed .3 miles on this road to a turn to the left where cars can be parked. Follow the turn-off road northwest (it is very faint or has disappeared) across the field to the tree-covered dumps.

Very rich specimens of bornite and chalcopyrite can be found on the dumps, also secondary copper minerals including malachite and azurite are present as thin coatings.

This mine is in the Tibbit Hill volcanics, which are a fine-grained, chlorite-albite-epidote rock formed from the metamorphism of an original basic volcanic rock. The bornite and chalcopyrite are hydrothermal in origin and the malachite and azurite are thin films on the rock resulting from the weathering of the bornite and chalcopyrite. It is interesting to note that pyrite and pyrrhotite which are found in most of the other copper mines in Vermont are absent here.