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| CAUTION: "ROCK POX" AREA ! Beware! "Rock Pox" has been detected! It's symptoms...You can't stop thinking about rocks and minerals, you start thinking about all the specimens you don't have yet and you just have to get more rocks!!! Welcome to our "Rock Talk" Page July 2009 Well we finally made it back out on the old "rock trails" road again. This year we headed up to ELY, Nevada in the eastern side of the Nevada Great Basin area where the Steptoe Valley meets the Egan Mountain range at an elevation of between 6400 ft to 7400 ft. Ely is an old town which was originally established in the 1870's as a stagecoach station and post office. In the early 1900's after the faltering of the gold rush era, the copper in the Ely area (The Robinson Mining District) became an attraction and by 1906 a copper boom had developed and the Northern Nevada Railroad was built to connect the Pit mines in Ruth (west of Ely) to the smelters in McGill (east of Ely). In the 1915 to 1958 time frame the Kennecott Copper Company had bought up most of the copper mimes and had control of the mining of copper in the area. Up to 22,000 tons of copper ore were removed daily until 1978 when the copper mines were closed. In 1991 Magma Copper Company reopened the mines, but they also closed down again in 1997. With the demand for copper rising in China, the mining was reopened recently by Quadra Mining Ltd of Vancouver Canada. The ore is crushed and concentrated at the mine and is trucked to Wendover, Nevada where it is loaded onto railroad cars and shipped to the west coast where it is sent by ships to China for smelting and refining. In 2008, the Robinson Mine produced 160,000,000 pounds of copper and 130,000 ounces of gold. Copper minerals occurring in deposits large enough to mine include Azurite, Malachite, Chalcopyrite, and Bournite. Other metals in this area include gold, silver, lead, zinc, manganese and molybdenum with rhenium. Rockin' & Rollin' Geology Special " 2009 marks the first year of the Nevada Northern Railway's Rockin' & Rollin' Geology Special. You're invited to board our time machine on one of four trips up to the Sunshine siding near the Robinson mine to learn about the geology that made the Robinson district a top copper producer for more than seventy years during the twentieth century. The Rockin' & Rollin' Geology Special pulls out of East Ely only four times in 2009; scheduled at 6:30 p.m. on Saturdays June 13, July 18, August 15, and September 12. Join this rare trip as far as the Sunshine siding near the mines. Reservations are suggested; seating is limited. Call the museum toll free at 1-866-40STEAM (or 775-289-2085) or order online." Below is a link to their website for much more information! http://www.nevadanorthernrailway.net/ On this wonderful trip we had a geologist ride the train (which was pulled by a diesel engine instead of a steam engine so we could see the surrounding areas without the smoke from the steam engine). The geologist was very informative and explained everything to any level you requested. He taught the area geology and mining history to amateurs as well as professionals. There is an open flat car available for better viewing as well as enclosed passenger cars. Although the trip costs $42.00 per adult (age 13 and older), or $25.00 for ages 4-12, (ages 3 and under are free), The trip is well worth the fare! It was almost a 2 hour trip on which you are served a dinner that included a pasty (pronounced pass - tee) The pasty is a baked meat pie comprised of beef (sometimes fish), onions, potatoes, parsley, and parsnips, all wrapped in a flaky pastry covering. These pasties were carried deep underground in the miner’s lunch box and occasionally reheated over an open fire on shovel blades. Truly a memorable and educational trip! Most of the mountains around this area are limestone and dolomite with a few exceptions....One exception is a mountain that has tertiary volcanic rocks (mostly rhyolite) overlaying the sedimentary rocks. Formed within this volcanic rhyolite were gas pockets that allowed the formation of garnets. Welcome to Garnet Mountain! The garnets here have been well picked over for many years but there are still garnets to be found with some perseverance and a good eye! Chris and I found several small specimens just hammering the rock on the surface or slightly below the surface. We did not however find some of the larger specimens. We found a Trading Post in Ely run by a Shoshone woman. She had several good specimens of garnet on rhyolite matrix which came from deeper digs than we were prepared to make...especially at 7,200 ft elevation....digging takes your breath away at that altitude! We have listed these specimens on our new Garnet page through our mineral list page. Lehman Caves, in the Great Basin National Park Lehman Caves is a beautiful marble cave ornately decorated with stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, flowstone, popcorn, and over 300 rare shield formations. Click on link below or center photo for Lehman Caves site http://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/lehman-caves-tours.htm The cave (for there is only one with multiple chambers) is located behind an iron door set into the hillside close to the Great Basin National Park visitor center, and most people come to the park only to see the underground features. These spaeleotherms are a wonder to see! There is a wide variety of delicate limestone formations including unusual large shell- like structures known as shields. The Lehman Caves cavern may only be seen as part of a ranger-guided tour. This costs (2009) $8 per person for 60 minutes or $10 for 90 minutes - although entry to the national park is free - and begin every hour during summer, or less frequently at other times. The temperature underground is a steady 50°F all year; noticeably cooler than that outside in summer, although at an elevation of nearly 7,000 feet, the park is never particularly hot. |
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| This is a view across the valley from Garnet Mountain to the Copper Pit at Ruth, Nevada |
