East Coleman Mine (Ron Coleman Mine; Old Coleman Mine; West Chance; Dierks No. 4; Blocker Lead; Geomex), Jessieville, Garland Co., Arkansas, USA

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A quartz mine located 4½ miles NNW of Jessieville. Mineralization is quartz veins in Stanley Shale.
Access: Located on the road which runs alongside Colemans Rock Shop and driving two miles west of Hwy 7, then turn right on Crystal Ridge Road and driving to the top of the hill to the mine, all roads paved, stopping at the office/rock shop at the top of the hill past the campground, to pay your dig fee.

Ref.:
Rocks & Min.:63:108
Engel (1952).

This mine was and is the most productive quartz mine in Arkansas. It has been producing quartz crystals in large quantities since 1943. When it is operating it has produced about 60,000 pounds of quartz crystals a during a good month. In the 1980s the mine was sold to the Japanese to produce quartz for industrial purposes (fiber optics?). In the early 90s, Ronny Coleman bought the mine back from the Japanese and has operated it intermittently ever since.
[Rock Currier 2011]

Origninally the mine was called the Dierks No.4 Mine or the Blocker Lead mine which was named after John Blocker, a local crystal dealer. Quartz veins in this region are called leads. The mine did not originally produce much in the way of quartz because the deposit was "capped" with massive white quartz. It was not till 1943 that the mine started to produce a lot of crystals when local diggers penetrated the massive white quartz cap of the vein and produced large quantities of both ornamental and oscillator quartz crystals. Operations were entirely by hand along a vein that was 10 to 50 feet wide and 800 feet long. All the production was from closely spaced hand dug holes with a maximum depth of about 20 feet. In a period of four months the miners produced about 50 tons of crystals of which 2100 pounds were of oscillator grade.

In 1943 the local miners stopped working the productive zone because of claims litigation. In January of 1944 the Diamond Drill Carbon Co. set up operations there and explored the vein with open cuts up to 40 feet deep. During the next four months they mined 60 tons of crystals and more than 2,500 pounds of eye-clear quartz. This was the most outstanding production in volume and crystal size of any single deposit in the district. The pockets mined at this time measured as much as 4x10x30 feet have contained mostly large crystals, the largest weighing as much as 600 pounds. Many crystals between 20 & 40 pounds contain 10 to 30% oscillator quartz. The largest single piece of oscillator quartz mined weighed 18 pounds after cobbing. However more than 88% of the eye-clear quartz shows appreciable optical twinning. No associated primary minerals have been found in the exposed deposits, which are deeply weathered, but many crystals and fragments of vein quartz contain rhombohedral casts of calcite. Clots of kaolin and dark-red halloysite, clays fill fissures throughout the deposits. Crystal and vein quartz with carbonaceous inclusions occur locally.
[Quartz Crystal Deposits of Western Arkansas. USGS Bulletin #973-E 1951 by A.E.J. Engel, pp 246-248]

Mineral List

Ankerite Calcite

Quartz var: Milky Quartz

Quartz var: Rock Crystal

5 entries listed. 3 valid minerals.

References