Bauxite

specimen number:
2262328

location:
Bauxite, Saline Co., Arkansas, USA

description:
A good example of massive bauxite. From the classic American locality.

The bauxite mining district of central Arkansas, centered primarily within Saline and Pulaski counties, was the premier source of aluminum ore in the United States, at one point supplying nearly the entirety of domestic production. Geologically, these extensive Tertiary-age deposits formed during the Paleocene to Eocene epoch through intense, tropical bauxitization (extreme weathering) of an exposed Cretaceous-age igneous intrusion composed chiefly of nepheline syenite. This profound lateritic weathering leached away silica and mobile cations, concentrating insoluble aluminum oxide minerals like gibbsite, boehmite, and diaspore into residual, colluvial, and stratified pisolitic ore bodies nestled within the Gulf Coastal Plain sedimentary sequences. Historically, the ore was first identified in the region by State Geologist John Casper Branner in 1888, triggering localized surface quarrying that expanded into systematic corporate operations by 1898. The district quickly became dominated by major industrial entities, notably the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) and later the Reynolds Metals Company, who transitioned early open-pit excavations into massive, highly mechanized strip mines and deep underground shafts to feed the nearby Hurricane Creek alumina refinery. Industrial output peaked dramatically during World War II, yielding over six million long tons of ore in 1944 alone to support Allied aircraft manufacturing, along with notable byproducts like gallium. Large-scale corporate mining for aluminum production sustained the region for decades until the exhaustion of high-grade, easily accessible deposits, combined with the availability of cheaper, higher-grade overseas ores, led Alcoa to close its local mining sector in 1981, followed by Reynolds shutting down the Hurricane Creek facility in 1982, which marked the final cessation of major commercial aluminum-grade bauxite extraction in Arkansas after a total regional output exceeding 70 million long tons.

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