Galena (SUL-0016)

specimen number:
9273193

location:
Sweetwater Mine, Viburnum Trend, Reynolds Co., Missouri, USA

description:

A wonderful example from this famous locality from the 1990s. Brilliant lustrous cubic crystals of galena to 3.7 cm on edge set up beautifully from a breccia matrix. Smaller octahedral crystals of galena, as well as colorless crystals of dolomite, are scattered throughout. This is in good condition. Complete all around.

The Sweetwater mine, located in Reynolds County, Missouri, is a major underground mining operation situated within the Viburnum Trend lead district. Geologically, the deposit is a classic Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) lead-zinc-copper deposit, where metal-bearing hydrothermal fluids migrated through regional sedimentary basins and replaced the porous dolomite of the Cambrian Bonneterre Formation. The mineralization is strongly localized by a structural ring-fault system associated with the underlying Precambrian basement topography, precipitating extensive tabular ore bodies of galena, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite, along with abundant calcite and marcasite gangue minerals. Originally developed and opened by the Ozark Lead Company in 1967, the facility features a deep shaft and an on-site flotation mill to concentrate the extracted base metals. The operation transitioned through major corporate ownership changes, including acquisition by Asarco in 1986 and later by the Doe Run Company in 1998, and it remains a highly productive, active industrial operation today, continuing to supply significant percentages of domestic lead ore.

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