Mineral Mondays #64 Blue Bell Mine

Going Into The Blue Bell Mine For Chalcanthite & Other Minerals

Fortune favors the bold, but sometimes the fortune requires a fortune to get to it. Thankfully some of those bold, fortune seekers came before me and spent a fortune opening up the treasure vaults in the mountains so I didn't have to. For example the Blue Bell Mine in the Mojave Desert off the famous Zzyzx road.

Back in November I headed over to the Blue Bell after digging for opals the day before. I've been to the Blue Bell a few times before so I knew it would be a worthwhile collecting trip, but little did I know it would be my best yet. Before I get into the trip here is a little information on the mine.

History
The Blue Bell Mine is a former lead & silver mine that dates back to 1885. It's treasured by mineral collectors for it's wide variety of mineral specimens as well as the 5 new mineral species first identified there. Collecting there took off in the 1950's when linarite & caledonite specimens started to hit the market.

Mineralogy
The mine is actually a collection of several claims & adits on 1 mountain. It's divided into 2 sections by a large, granite dike with at least 8 adits each producing their own unique groups of minerals.

The mountain is composed of limestone & granite with large vein inclusions of lead, zinc, and copper minerals. Together those three minerals combine to make a plethora of other minerals.

The Adventure

On the way into the mine over a very decomposing, old mining road, I noticed some people up on the mountain at the A1 & A2 adit location. Since I had told everyone from my club the day before I would be heading to the Blue Bell I thought it might have been some of them. I flashed my lights and honked my horn, but because they were so far away I couldn't see any reaction.

When I parked I quickly loaded up my gear and headed up the mountain to the A1 & A2 adit location. When I got to the top 3 guys I didn't know were there, but as rockhounds we're always happy to see other faces, especially far out in the desert. We went through introductions and they showed me what they had dug the day before. They had camped at the mine and had made a nice haul of dioptase, chrysocolla, linarite, caledonite and many of the other minerals the mine produces.

I had mentioned to them I would be heading over the B, C & D adits after collecting here for a bit and one of the guys, we'll call him J, said he'd like to venture into the main haulage adit of the mine, the B adit, also known as the Atkinson's tunnel. I said great and I'd meet him over there after a bit of collecting chrysocolla & linarite and collecting at the C adit. So, we went our ways and I filled my bags with what I could carry and made my way to the C adit.

The Glory Hole of the A2 adit. Chrysocolla, linarite & caledonite are plentiful here.

A peak inside.

A look at the vein we were collecting from.

I stopped briefly at the C adit, then made my way down to my truck to get ready to head into the B adit.

You can see my truck at bottom, left of this photo. Desolate, but beautiful scenery out there.

After about 1 hour J drove over to the front of the mountain where I was. Unfortunately as he was driving up the road he drifted a bit too far to the edge and got stuck, even though he was in 4WD.

I walked down to help him and unfortunately we spent the next hour digging him out and building a secondary berm for his left side wheels to drive on. He made it out and we were back on schedule.

Neither of us had been in B before so we weren't sure what to expect. We geared up and headed in, headlights, helmets, backpacks with lots of water, 3 extra lights each, first aid and masks. My warning, do not attempt to go into mines unless you know what you are doing. False floors, unseen holes and gasses that build up in them can instantly kill you. Having said that J & I generally know the mine, we just hadn't been in before.

There is an old video on youtube or two guys walking in a bit, but they didn't take the correct branch for the good minerals. J knew from a friend that there was a stope at the end of one of the branches that contained the good minerals and so we followed that branch as they turned right off of the main tunnel.

About 10 minutes in we found the stope. It climbed about 15-20 high and had a ledge the old miners had cut so they could get to the upper workings. Here is where I started the video. It starts at the stope and then continues as we head back out stopping at the chalcanthite location and then going to the back of the main adit tunnel to the face(end).

At the end of the day I collected about 100lbs of chrysocolla, hemimorphite, linarite, fluorite and other lesser known, but rare minerals like dioptase & quetzalcoatlite. Another great collecting trip.