Lone
Pine Gem & Mineral Society
CFMS Field Trip
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Cerro Gordo Mine
8:00 am
Lone
Pine Gem & Mineral Society is hosting a field trip to Cerro Gordo on June
24, 2012. They would like everyone in
CFMS to be invited.
Meet: 8:30 am at Lee's Chevron station at the
south of end of Lone Pine.
Cost
- $5.00 per person + 2 gallons of fresh
water minimum and a half dozen pieces of firewood or more. (*More water would
be greatly appreciated - Cerro Gordo lost their onsite water system, so water
has to be hauled in from Keelen.)
High-clearance vehicles are
recommended, with low gearing for the last 15 miles of the trip, which takes
about 45 minutes from Lone Pine. This road is steep but well graded dirt road (9
miles with 5000 elevation gain). Car
pooling can be arranged at Chevron station.
What
to Collect: Cerro Gordo offers more diverse mineral specimens than any other
mine in California. Most of us will be
looking for Smithsonite, a zinc carbonate, usually
with some iron, magnesium, and calcium, occasionally with some cadmium, copper,
and cobalt. Combinations of all these
elements do not exist; only particular combinations can exist. Blue Smithsonite on
the left and "Turkey Fat" Smithsonite on
the right. Notice the botryoidal texture in
which the mineral has a globular external form resembling a bunch of
grapes. Smithsonite is normally found in the massive
form and rarely found as crystals.
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Tools
to bring: small hand rake (three prong garden tool) for
scraping through the tailings, spray bottle, small shovel, rock pick or hammer,
collecting bag or bucket, sturdy boots, sunscreen, hat, and plenty of drinking
water.
Bring water
and lunch.
Cerro Gordo is at an elevation of 8,300ft. It'll be several degrees
cooler than the valley floor. The temperature can either be hot or cold so plan
accordingly.
Contact
- If you have any questions please contact Dana at 760-876-5020 (you may have to
leave a message) or Francis Pedneau
at (760) 876-4319, Lone Pine Gem & Mineral.
Cerro Gordo was primarily a silver mine in the 1870s
and a zinc mine around 1911. The mine is at an elevation of 8,000 feet, so plan
accordingly. The site has a small museum to explore. The old American Hotel is
under restoration, and the town has many other small buildings and mill site to
look at though they won't be open. Collecting will be in old tailings and we
will look primarily for smithsonite and associated
copper and lead minerals. Cerro Gordo is noted for over 49 minerals.
Mineral Collecting at this site can be quite
rewarding. CERRO GORDO is world renown for: Anglesite, anhydrite, argentite, atacamite, aurichalcite, azurite,
barite, bindheimite, bouronite,
calcite, caledonite, cermrgyrite,
cerussite, ceruantite, chrysocolla, dufrenoysite, flourite, galena, geothite, greenockite, hemimorphite, hollosite, hydrozincite, jamesonite, leadhillite,
limonite, linerite, liroconite,
malachite, mimetite, plumbgumite,
pyrite, quartz, silver, smithsonite, sphalerite, stibnite, stromeyerite,
tetrahedrite, tetrajymite, willemite, and wulfenite. Of special interest to rock hounders is the smithsonite which
is world class.
Nestled high in the Inyo Mountains east of the
Sierra Nevadas, at an altitude of 8,500 feet, Cerro
Gordo, Fat Hill, was discovered to be rich in silver deposits by a group of
Mexican miners led by Pablo Flores. The year was 1865. By 1866, Victor Beaudry, a French Canadian, now a merchant at Fort
Independence in Owens Valley, realized there were opportunities at the Cerro
Gordo mining camp, and opened a general store on the mountain. He began
acquiring mining properties in lieu of overdue accounts and by January of 1868
arranged with Pierre Desormeaux to build ore
furnaces. By April of 1868, Beaudry acquired more
properties which included the richest claims on the hill, the Union, the San
Lucas, the San Felipe and more.
That same April that Victor Beaudry
claimed more and more properties around Cerro Gordo, Mortimer Belshaw came in to town. He became part owner of the Union
Mine, as well. June 1868, Belshaw processed ore in
one of the Mexican furnaces, then brought the first wagon load of silver into
the sleepy pueblo of Los Angeles. He built the Yellow Grade road from Owens dry
lake to Cerro Gordo, in July of 1868, so equipment could be taken to the mines,
and the ore taken down the mountain. He also built his own smelters to process
that ore, in much larger volumes than Victor Beaudry
was capable of. By December of 1868,
regular shipments of silver bullion were going to Los Angeles. Silver ingots 18
inches long, and weighing 85 pounds, were worth from 20-35 dollars. Cerro Gordo
was being hailed as another Comstock.