In April 2008 I headed to NJ to get out of the snow and cold of Quebec. I decided to try to find some samples of the minerals that one might find in the Iron mines of New Jersey. I targeted the Scrub Oak mines in Mine Hill Borough, Morris county near Dover. My hope was to find some to the Synchysite Y, named Doverite after the town. The Scrub Oaks tunneled deep into Mine Hill. I was approaching it from the north side of Mine Hill. I had already made an approach to the area of the mine on Iron Mountain Road. Due to the amount of no trespass signs, I gave up here. There was recent bulldozing at the end near the cul-de-sac. I might have look at a few piles of rock near the road. Later I went to the other side and approached the area from the north.
The Scrub Oak Mine or Repogle Mine was sunk into this hill around 1700 feet deep. There were rooms and stopes at one time, even an underground blacksmith shop. Today there is little evidence or the surface mills and building. The mine was active until the 50’s. Today there is an excavating company Petrillo Enterprises on Dell Rd that had been removing the glacial and other sand, gravel and rock from the west side of the Mine Hill. This is how the side of Mine hill looked where I was at.

I believe on their property there must be more interesting material brought up from all the mining, probably a little further south on the property. The question is where did all the interesting waste rock from this mine go? Off course there are no trespassing signs posted everywhere along the Iron Mountain road, but it might be a good idea to ask the owner’s permission at Petrillo enterprises to look around.
I decided to take a hike along the power lines from Hugh Force Park, on West Dewey Ave. This park is interesting. You see the Morris Canal preserved parallel with the Rockaway river and above an abandoned railroad, all part of the past iron mining history of New Jersey. I took an ATV trail southeast ward along power lines until I came to the Northeast part of the sand and gravel excavation of the Petrillo property. I picked up some samples that may have been from a mine tailings or just local glacial deposits.

While hiking the trail along the power lines I saw example of glacial erratic from the Green Pond Conglomerates. Distinctive Puddingstone with white quartz pebbles in red brown blood pudding matrix.

“The Green Pond Outlier is a complex northeast-trending belt of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that bisects the Precambrian crystalline rocks of Reading Prong. The Skunnemunk Conglomerate is lithologically unique in that it is a classic "puddingstone," consisting of well-rounded quartz and red sandstone cobbles in a fine-grained red ironstone matrix. Pieces of Skunnemunk Conglomerate are easy to recognize in glacial deposits throughout the lower Hudson Valley region. The Skunnemunk Conglomerate is equivalent to the Late Devonian sequence of the Catskills region.”(Ref: http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/nyc/valleyandridge/greenpond.htm)
Here is a sample of rock with magnetite in a rusty feldspar granitic matrix. There are grains of magnetite in an orangish feldspar like pegmatite environment. One piece sporting a little vug @ 1mm with a slight fluorescent white blue coming from a white coating in it.

Then there was this glacially rounded almost polished pistachio colored epidote? With dark greenish-black mineral.

Well I figured that next time I would try to ask permission to see what rock and gravel might have been displaced at Petrillo Ent., and I moved on toward Mount Hope NJ.
Today the Mount Hope mine complex is on Tilcon corporations property where they have an active crushed stone quarry. It is well gated and guarded. Since this was spur of the moment I drove up and tried to see if the guard house would let me in to take some photos, however there was no one there. So I left. I went to the Teabo mines just down the road, on Teabo road off of Richard mine Road, which is off of Mount Hope Road. Futher on you will come to the Mount Hope Avenue notoriously named Route 666 and you will end up in the Picatinny Arsenal. (But we won’t go there)
Instead I hiked around the remnants of the Teabo Mine #2 and Allen Mine. You can park you car at the Mount Hope Historical Park

This is a map of the trails around the mines

You will see lots of dumps and still find some solid and high grade magnetite.

Along with the magnetite I found some green feldspar, quartz , pyrite, magnetite and biotite

Then the mystery black stuff. It is like a breccias or a mash of black horndblende pyroxene? And gray interstitial. Strangely it fluoresces with green stringers and red specks under sw just weak to moderately.
I can’t remember now if I picked it up in the Teabo mine area or the Scrub Oaks Mine hill area. It needs further research.


Below are some more pieces under normal and SW ultraviolet light.


I would like to get in touch with anyone interested in helping identify these items

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