Vivianite

specimen number:
1052761

location:
Ibex Mine, Leadville, Colorado, USA

description:

Fine old time Colorado specimen consisting of a cluster of dark green to almost black lustrous vivianite crystals with little attached matrix. This is in good condition. The specimen comes with an antique label as shown at the end of the video. The original acquisition date for this piece was 1908.

The Ibex mine, situated on Breece Hill within the historic Leadville mining district of Lake County, Colorado, was one of the most prolific producers of high-grade gold, silver, zinc, and copper ores in the western United States. Geologically, the deposit sits within a complex structural network of faulting where mid-Tertiary porphyry sills and dikes intruded into thick Paleozoic sedimentary sequences, particularly the Leadville Limestone. Hydrothermal fluids originating from these deep magmatic sources formed extensive, highly specialized blanket-like replacement bodies, or mantos, rich in auriferous pyrite, argentiferous galena, sphalerite, and secondary copper minerals, which filled massive Solution cavities and breccia zones. Historically, underground shaft operations at the Ibex property began in earnest in 1891 following the consolidation of several smaller mining claims by the Ibex Mining Company, famously led by John F. Campion and James Joseph Brown. Under their management, the mine developed thousands of feet of underground workings through the Little Johnny shaft and operated continuously through the silver crash of 1893 by pivoting heavily to gold production, which sustained a massive industrial output until declining ore grades and rising water pumping costs forced a transition to smaller-scale lessee operations in the 1920s, leading to the permanent closure of the main workings by the mid-twentieth century.

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