Calcite

specimen number:
2292355

location:
Lion Hill Mine, Tooele Co., Utah, USA

description:
Several generations of calcite growth, these large scalenohedral and's to 4.5 cm in height. This is fluorescent. In good condition and quite nice for this locality.

Lion Hill, located in the southern Oquirrh Mountains of Tooele County, Utah, is a historically significant mining area within the Ophir mining district. Geologically, the hill is situated along the crest and flanks of the great Ophir anticline, a major dome-like fold in the Paleozoic sedimentary strata. The primary ore deposits occur within the Mississippian-aged Great Blue Limestone, directly below the Long Trail Shale Member, where mineralizing fluids associated with nearby monzonite porphyry sills formed bedded replacement bodies and pipe-like shoots closely associated with silicified jasperoid. Mining history on Lion Hill began in the early 1870s following discoveries of extremely high-grade silver chloride ores, alongside lead and gold. Notable operations like the Chloride Point, Buffalo, and Eastside mines yielded millions of dollars in precious metals during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though the shallow, highly oxidized deposit zones were largely worked out and became inactive by the mid-twentieth century.

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