Siegenite

specimen number:
2063571

location:
Buick Mine, Viburnum Trend, Iron Co., Missouri, USA

description:
Bright lustrous metallic silver crystals of siegenite to 0.3 cm in size fairly rich across the top of matrix with golden crystals of chalcopyrite. Some of the siegenite crystals exhibit spinel law twinning. Galena is also present as well as colorless dolomite. From the early 1980s, the specimen comes with a previous label from the collection of Ray DeMark.

Located in Iron County, Missouri, the Buick Mine is one of the premier lead-zinc-copper operations along the famous Viburnum Trend in the Southeast Missouri Lead District. Discovered in 1960 and operated commercially starting in the late 1960s, the underground mine extracts metals from Mississippi Valley-type ore deposits hosted in marine carbonates of the Cambrian Bonneterre Formation. Hydrothermal mineralizing fluids replaced dolomitized limestone matrix and filled cavities, creating classic vuggy ores packed with well-formed sulfide crystals. The locality became world famous among collectors for producing outstanding specimens of siegenite, a rare nickel-cobalt sulfide mineral that occurs here as bright, lustrous, steel-gray octahedral crystals perched on brassy chalcopyrite and dark sphalerite. Although the mine operates for industrial base metals rather than mineral specimens, specimen retrieval by miners during peak production made the Buick Mine a celebrated source for world-class siegenite and related sulfides.

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