Molybdenite
specimen number:
2262313
location:
Edison Mine, Sparta, Sussex Co., New Jersey, USA
description: The Edison mine, located on Sparta Mountain in Ogdensburg, Sussex County, New Jersey, was a historically notable and technologically innovative iron ore operation. Geologically, the deposit consists of low-grade, disseminated magnetite grains hosted within ancient Proterozoic-age Franklin Banded Gneiss, rather than the massive, high-grade magnetite veins found elsewhere in the Highlands province. This required the processing of massive volumes of hard rock to extract and concentrate the iron economic units. Historically, small-scale surface quarrying and underground exploration began at the site during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but the property achieved industrial prominence in 1889 when legendary inventor Thomas A. Edison established the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Works at the site. Edison built a massive, highly mechanized industrial milling complex that utilized automated rock crushers and advanced magnetic separation pulleys to mine, crush, and concentrate the low-grade magnetite into manufactured iron briquettes for regional blast furnaces. Operating on a large scale through the 1890s, the facility employed hundreds of workers until the sudden discovery and cheap open-pit exploitation of the massive, high-grade iron deposits in the Mesabi Range of Minnesota caused the market price of domestic iron ore to collapse. Unable to compete economically, Edison closed down all commercial mining and milling operations at the property in 1900, leaving behind extensive water-filled open cuts, foundations, and tailings piles.
A loose grouping of bright foliated metallic molybdenite crystals. In good condition. From the 1960s.
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