Fieldtrip Report:
Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum Scheduled Dig Report
April 13-14, 2007Steve Bonney
I arrived in Marion, Kentucky on Friday in time to visit the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum which was sponsoring a field trip the next day as one of their regularly scheduled digs. Ben Clement amassed a huge collection of mineral specimens in his lifetime, especially those associated with the Kentucky-Illinois Fluorspar District.
Located in an old school building, the Museum has a breath-taking display of his minerals. There are also mining artifacts on display. The Fluorspar District in simple terms is a portion of southern Illinois and Kentucky which is dominated by extensive geologic faulting. These faults set the stage for the vein mineralization which interested miners and still interests mineral collectors.
It poured most of Friday night and most of Saturday making for less than ideal digging conditions. The first digging location visited was the Columbia Mine which dates back to 1835, the oldest in the Fluorspar District. The material at this particular spoil pile was being was used by the landowner to fill a mine shaft until they discovered much of the material fluoresced. It was the least messy place to dig on a very wet day.
This old building housed the boilers for the mining operation at the Columbia Mine. The landowner and the Clement Museum have cooperated and attempted to do more digging at the fault which the Columbia Mine was focused on to expose fresh material. This area held great promise, but was just too muddy to do any serious digging while I was there.
Massive calcite, galena, sphalerite, and fluorite were easy to find here. Good crystals of these and other minerals were a little more difficult to locate. This specimen has a nice sprinkling of galena crystals.
The Eureka Prospects (Mine), initially mined in the 1940’s, is located nearby. It has a reputation for producing some very nice fluorite specimens. I broke from the Columbia Mine about midmorning and attacked the Eureka. Much of the mine material is covered by leaf litter, forest vegetation, and soil, but I quickly found nice fluorite specimens laying about right on the surface.
Most of the better specimens found by me after final cleanup and trimming would range from the miniature to the micromount size range. This nice zoned fluorite crystal sitting on a bed of quartz crystals measures only about 1/8 inch across.
Some of the better material at this site reportedly is found in the vicinity of the adjacent creek where the landowner and museum have tried to access the fault which the Eureka Prospects (Mine) were focused on. The heavy rain had the creek high, muddy, and swift, so collecting there was impossible.
Fortunately there was plenty of area to search nearby. The danger sign in the distance marks a previously unknown mine shaft located while trying to provide fresh material for collectors.
These nicely colored crystals are about ½ inch across. This specimen was found in a small undisturbed spoil pile across the road from the primary digging area. Scattered sites such as this are located throughout the woods between the Columbia Mine and the Eureka Prospects (Mine).
