Barite

specimen number:
2292307

location:
Northumberland Mine, Nye Co., Nevada, USA

description:
Glassy double terminated crystals of barite transparent in measuring to 2.5 cm in length on matrix. In good condition. Nice for this Nevada locality.

The Northumberland mine, located in the Toquima Range of Nye County, Nevada, is a notable precious metal and industrial mineral deposit. Geologically, it represents an early recognized Carlin-type, disseminated gold and silver deposit hosted primarily within the silicified, fractured carbonaceous shale, siltstone, and limestone beds of the Ordovician Pogonip Group. These sedimentary host rocks are locally associated with a Jurassic-Cretaceous quartz monzonite intrusion and are cut by late-stage hydrothermal veins containing coarse barite. Silver was first discovered in the district in 1866, leading to sporadic, small-scale underground mining that largely ceased by 1891. Modern open-pit gold mining began in 1939 under the Northumberland Mining Company, which operated a 325-ton cyanide mill until World War II regulations forced its closure in 1942. Following decades of intermittent exploration, large-scale open-pit mining and heap-leach operations were revived from 1981 through 1988 under Cyprus Mines Corporation, with the property experiencing subsequent rounds of exploration by various major mining firms into the early twenty-first century.

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