Sterling Hill Mining Museum

Last updated
Sterling Hill Mining Museum
Sterling-hill-mining-museum.png
Location map of Sussex County, New Jersey.svg
Red pog.svg
USA New Jersey location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location30 Plant Street, Ogdensburg, New Jersey
Coordinates 41°4′59″N74°36′24″W / 41.08306°N 74.60667°W / 41.08306; -74.60667
Architectural styleIndustrial
NRHP reference No. 91001365 [1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPSeptember 3, 1991
Designated NJRHPJuly 11, 1991

The Sterling Hill Mine, now known as the Sterling Hill Mining Museum, is a former zinc mine in Ogdensburg, Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. It was the last working underground mine in New Jersey. It closed in 1986, and became a museum in 1989. Along with the nearby Franklin Mine, it is known for its variety of minerals, especially the fluorescent varieties. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. [1]

Contents

History

Inside the mine Sterling-hill-mining-museum-inside-adit-portal.png
Inside the mine
Inside the exhibit hall Sterling-hill-mining-museum-collection.png
Inside the exhibit hall

Mining began at the site in the 1630s, when it was mistakenly thought to be a copper deposit. [2] George III of the United Kingdom granted the property to William Alexander, titled Lord Stirling. Stirling sold it to Robert Ogden in 1765. It went through several owners until the various mines were combined into the New Jersey Zinc Company in 1897. The mine closed in 1986 due to a tax dispute with the town, which foreclosed for back taxes in 1989 and auctioned the property to Richard and Robert Hauck for $750,000. It opened as a museum in August 1990. [3]

Geology

The ore bodies at the Sterling Hill Mine lie within a formation called the Reading Prong massif; the ores are contained within the Franklin Marble. [4] This was deposited as limestone in a Precambrian oceanic rift trough. [5] It subsequently underwent extensive metamorphosis during the Grenville orogeny, approximately 1.15 billion years ago. [6] [7] Uplift and erosion during the late Mesozoic and the Tertiary era ,exposed the ore bodies at the surface. The glaciers of the Pleistocene strewed trains of ore-bearing boulders for miles to the south, in places creating deposits large enough to be worked profitably. [8]

In the area of the Franklin and Sterling Hill mines, more than 360 minerals are known to occur. These make up approximately 10% of the minerals known to science. Thirty-five of these minerals have not been found anywhere else. [9] Ninety-one of the minerals fluoresce. [10]

There are 35 miles (56 km) of tunnels in the mine, going down to 1,850 feet (560 m) below the surface in the main shaft and 2,675 feet (815 m) in the lower shaft. As of 2017, other than the very top level of the mine (<100 ft), the entire lower section has been flooded due to the natural water table and hence is no longer accessible. The mine is at a constant 56 °F (13 °C).

Zinc ore from the Sterling Hill Mine. Red = zincite, black = franklinite, white = calcite. Specimen is 6.3 cm wide. Zincite-franklinite-calcite rock (zinc ore), Sterling Hill NJ.jpg
Zinc ore from the Sterling Hill Mine. Red = zincite, black = franklinite, white = calcite. Specimen is 6.3 cm wide.

Museum

The tour spends about 30 minutes inside the exhibit hall which contains a wide variety of mining memorabilia, mineralogical samples, fossils, and meteorites. It then leads into the mine for a 1,300 foot (400 m) walk on level ground through the upper level of the mine. [11] [12] The walk goes through a new 240 foot (73 m) section which they blasted in 1990 using 49 blasts and at a cost of $2 (~$4.00 in 2021) a foot. [3] In the Rainbow Tunnel, short wave UV lights are turned on to demonstrate the entire tunnel and various samples glowing with fluorescence.

The mine is also home to the Ellis Astronomical Observatory, the Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence, and a large collection of mining equipment.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin, New Jersey</span> Borough in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States

Franklin is a borough in Sussex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 4,912, a decrease of 133 (−2.6%) from the 2010 census count of 5,045, which in turn reflected a decline of 115 (−2.2%) from the 5,160 counted in the 2000 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ogdensburg, New Jersey</span> Borough in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States

Ogdensburg is a borough in Sussex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 2,258, a decrease of 152 (−6.3%) from the 2010 census count of 2,410, which in turn reflected a decline of 228 (−8.6%) from the 2,638 counted in the 2000 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sphalerite</span> Zinc-iron sulfide mineral

Sphalerite is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula (Zn,Fe)S. It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in sedimentary exhalative, Mississippi-Valley type, and volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. It is found in association with galena, chalcopyrite, pyrite, calcite, dolomite, quartz, rhodochrosite, and fluorite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklinite</span>

Franklinite is an oxide mineral belonging to the normal spinel subgroup's iron (Fe) series, with the formula Zn2+Fe23+O4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willemite</span> Nesosilicate mineral

Willemite is a zinc silicate mineral and a minor ore of zinc. It is highly fluorescent (green) under shortwave ultraviolet light. It occurs in a variety of colors in daylight, in fibrous masses and apple-green gemmy masses. Troostite is a variant in which part of the zinc is partly replaced by manganese, it occurs in solid brown masses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esperite</span>

Esperite is a rare complex calcium lead zinc silicate (PbCa3Zn4(SiO4)4) related to beryllonite and trimerite that used to be called calcium larsenite. It was named in honor of Esper F. Larsen Jr. (1879–1961), petrologist of Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardystonite</span>

Hardystonite is a rare calcium zinc silicate mineral first described from the Franklin, New Jersey, U.S. zinc deposits. It often contains lead, which was detrimental to the zinc smelting process, so it was not a useful ore mineral. Like many of the famous Franklin minerals, hardystonite responds to short wave ultraviolet light, emitting a fluorescence from dark purple to bright violet blue. In daylight, it is white to gray to light pink in color, sometimes with a vitreous or greasy luster. It is very rarely found as well formed crystals, and these are usually rectangular in appearance and rock-locked.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Furnace</span>

Franklin Furnace, also known as the Franklin Mine, is a famous mineral location for rare zinc, iron, manganese minerals in old mines in Franklin, Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. This locale produced more species of minerals and more different fluorescent minerals than any other location. The mineral association (assemblage) from Franklin includes willemite, zincite and franklinite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southeast Missouri Lead District</span>

The Southeast Missouri Lead District, commonly called the Lead Belt, is a lead mining district in the southeastern part of Missouri. Counties in the Lead Belt include Saint Francois, Crawford, Dent, Iron, Madison, Reynolds, and Washington. This mining district is the most important and critical lead producer in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sullivan Mine</span>

The Sullivan Mine is a now-closed conventional–mechanized underground mine located in Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada. The ore body is a complex, sediment-hosted, sedimentary exhalative deposit consisting primarily of zinc, lead, and iron sulphides. Lead, zinc, silver and tin were the economic metals produced. The deposit lies within the lower part of the Purcell Supergroup and mineralization occurred about 1470 million years ago during the late Precambrian (Mesoproterozoic).

The Horsehead Holding Corporation, formerly The New Jersey Zinc Company, was an American producer of zinc and related materials based in Pittsburgh. The operations of the historic company are currently conducted as American Zinc Recycling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copper mining in the United States</span>

In the United States, copper mining has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017, the US produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leadville mining district</span> Mining district

The Leadville mining district, located in the Colorado Mineral Belt, was the most productive silver-mining district in the state of Colorado and hosts one of the largest lead-zinc-silver deposits in the world. Oro City, an early Colorado gold placer mining town located about a mile east of Leadville in California Gulch, was the location to one of the richest placer gold strikes in Colorado, with estimated gold production of 120,000–150,000 ozt, worth $2.5 to $3 million at the then-price of $20.67 per troy ounce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Jersey State Museum</span> State museum of New Jersey in Trenton, New Jersey

The New Jersey State Museum is located at 195-205 West State Street in Trenton, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The museum's collections include natural history specimens, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, and cultural history and fine art objects. Exhibitions, educational activities, research programs, and lectures are also offered. The museum, a division of the New Jersey Department of State, includes a 140-seat planetarium and a 384-seat auditorium.

St. Joe Minerals Corporation was an American mining company. It was the United States largest producer of lead and zinc at the time of its merger with Fluor Corporation in 1981. The St. Joseph Lead Company was founded on March 25, 1864 by Lyman W. Gilbert, John E. Wylie, Edmund I. Wade, Wilmot Williams, James L. Dunham and James L. Hathaway in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Backwards Tunnel</span> United States historic place

Backwards Tunnel, also known as the Ogdensburg Railroad Arch, is located in Ogdensburg, Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. The tunnel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 28, 2005.

The Franklin Mineral Museum in Franklin, New Jersey is a mineral, geology, and mining museum at the former Franklin Mine. It is located in Sussex County, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edison Ore-Milling Company</span>

The Edison Ore-Milling Company was a venture by Thomas Edison that began in 1881. Edison introduced some significant technological developments to the iron ore milling industry but the company ultimately proved to be unprofitable. Towards the end of the company's life, Edison realized the potential application of his technologies to the cement industry and formed the Edison Portland Cement Company in 1899.

Sterling Hill is a mountain in Sussex County, New Jersey. The peak rises to 833 feet (254 m), and overlooks the Wallkill River and Ogdensburg to the southeast. It is part of the Pimple Hills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zinc mining in the United States</span>

Zinc mining in the United States produced 780,000 tonnes of zinc in 2019, making it the world's fourth-largest zinc producer, after China, Australia, and Peru. Most US zinc came from the Red Dog mine in Alaska. The industry employed about 2,500 in mining and milling, and 250 in smelting.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. ↑ "The Enduring Significance of Sterling Hill". Sterling Hill Mining Museum. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  3. 1 2 Squires, Patricia (December 9, 1990). "OGDENSBURG JOURNAL; Old Mine Transformed Into Museum". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  4. ↑ Dunn, Pete J. "Introduction to local geology". Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
  5. ↑ Dunn, Pete J. "Regional geology". Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
  6. ↑ Wolf, Adam, John Rakovan, and Christopher Cahill. "Ferroaxinite from Lime Crest Quarry, Sparta, New Jersey". Rocks & Minerals, vol. 78 (July–August 2003), pp. 252-56. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
  7. ↑ "Zinc Mine Showcases a Disappearing World". New York Times. October 8, 1992. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  8. ↑ Dunn, Pete J. "Local geology". Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website. Retrieved 2011-09-06.
  9. ↑ Pollak, Michael (May 11, 1997). "New Jersey Underground: Fossils, Gems and Glowing Rocks". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  10. ↑ Bostwick, Richard C (2008). "Fluorescent Minerals of Franklin and Sterling Hill, N.J." Sterling Hill Mining Museum. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  11. ↑ "What's Here: Overview". Sterling Hill Mining Museum. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
  12. ↑ Genovese, Peter (2007). New Jersey Curiosities. Globe Pequot. p. 288. ISBN   978-0-7627-4112-0 . Retrieved 2009-04-18.

Literature

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.