Stephanite, Acanthite, Chlorargyrite, Quartz

Matrix specimen with stephanite, acanthite, and one small hemispherical mass of pale yellow chlorargyrite on martix of drusy quartz. This was collected off the dumps of the old Champion mine circa 1980. In the mid seventies, this mine was re-opened by the Anaconda Company and worked for its silver, but a mining engineering graduate of Montana Tech ran the operation and threw all the ore on to the dumps, and sent the gangue to the mill. The operation went bust, but for a few years you could pick up ore with these minerals (the chlorargyrite from here is previously unreported) including fine pyrargyrite crystals lying on the dumps in relative abundance. Later the dumps were removed and processed, so little good material remains. Ore sampled from here ran 290 ounces silver and 1.00 ounce gold per ton! Size of specimen: 3.7 x 2.9 x 2.9 cm.; self-collected.

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Photo added: 1st Dec 2009