Pyromorphite

specimen number:
2282125

location:
Bunker Hill Mine, Shoshone Co., Idaho, USA

description:
Lustrous yellow green crystals of pyromorphite coming off matrix. In good condition, nice thumbnail for the species.

The Bunker Hill mine, located near Kellogg in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of Shoshone County, Idaho, is a historic base-metal mine that operated as one of the largest silver and lead producers in the United States. Geologically, the deposit consists of massive hydrothermal vein systems hosted within heavily faulted and folded Precambrian metasedimentary rocks of the Belt Supergroup, primarily the Revett and St. Regis formations. Mineralization occurred when deeply sourced, metal-bearing fluids deposited massive iron, lead, zinc, and silver sulfides, resulting in dense veins of galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and siderite that frequently produced pyromorphite and cerussite specimens in the upper oxidized zones. Discovered in 1885 by Noah Kellogg, commercial underground development began shortly after under the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Company. The operation expanded to include an onsite mill and a large smelter complex, processing millions of tons of ore through the twentieth century until environmental challenges and declining metal prices forced the closure of primary mining operations in 1981, with the site later becoming part of a major federal environmental cleanup project.

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