Willemite with Franklinite

specimen number:
1052705

location:
Taylor Mine, Franklin, New Jersey, USA

description:
Blocky yellowish green lustrous crystals of willemite measuring to 1.5 cm in size across the top of matrix with franklinite. Good condition with minimal damage present. Incredibly fluorescent as shown at the end of the video. Specimen comes with an antique label, this also shown towards the end of the video. This label is an original acquisition date of 1907.

The Taylor mine, situated on the famous Mine Hill deposit at Franklin in Sussex County, New Jersey, is a classic historic mineral locality celebrated for producing exceptional, highly fluorescent specimens of willemite, a zinc silicate mineral. Geologically, this unique deposit is located within the Mesoproterozoic-age Franklin Marble formation, where a primitive marine sedimentary sequence rich in zinc, manganese, and iron underwent intense, high-grade granulite-facies regional metamorphism during the Grenville orogeny roughly one billion years ago. This severe thermal and structural alteration recrystallized the orebody into a bizarre, globally unique assemblage of zinc oxides and silicates, forming thick, folded strata where rich masses and crystals of willemite occur closely intergrown with franklinite and zincite within a coarse white calcite matrix. Historically, organized surface quarrying and open-pit mining at this specific section of the vein began in 1866 under early independent operators before being consolidated and systematically expanded as the underground Taylor mine by the New Jersey Zinc Company in 1897. The Taylor operation, which featured the massive open-cut Buckwheat Pit and an extensive underground shaft network, served as a primary industrial engine for the district until surface extraction at the open pit ceased around 1912, with deep underground mining continuing across the consolidated Franklin orebody until the entire deposit reached economic exhaustion and permanently closed in April 1954.

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