A Visit to New Jersey's Sterling Hill Mining Museum

While I was in New York my sweetie and I took a trip to the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in hilly Ogdensburg, NJ, an hour's drive from New York City. I'd wanted to visit ever since I pulled the web page up while trolling the Internet and discovered its abundance of fluorescent minerals. I've long been a sucker for glowy rocks!

The Museum sits at the site of a zinc mine that was closed in 1986. The mine once employed 1200 workers; it had 25 miles of tunnels, some more than 900 feet below the surface; it was the most productive zinc mine in the world. In its long life, more than 11 million tons of ore were extracted and shipped to Pennsylvania for smelting.

The Sterling Hill mine produced an astonishing variety and quantity of fluorescent minerals, especially zincite, willemite, and franklinite. More than 90 different fluorescent mineral types have been discovered at the site. Some are found nowhere else in the world.

The mine tour costs $10 and lasts two hours.

The ground are speckled with dozens of bronze statues of miners and hundreds of mining implements-- many of them huge. This ball mill was used to crush zinc ore.

There was something interesting everywhere we looked!

The tour began in the miners' locker room. Hanging steel baskets were once receptacles for sodden clothing; a pulley system allowed the miners to raise the baskets to to the roof, where fans and sunlight from skylights dried them. There was no real need to wash the clothing because ten minutes after entering the mine itwould be filthy.

The baskets are rust-free after so many years because the steel is infused with zinc-- no doubt locally mined.

Wage Table, ca 1930s. Click to Enlarge

The locker room was filled with collections of minerals and mining paraphernalia like headlamps, precision scales, wooden detonators and explosives boxes, and hand tools. I could have spent hours there, but we were herded out as the tour continued to the mines.

An adit is a horizontal or nearly horizontal entrance into a mine. A vertical entrance is called a collar.

When the mine was closed in 1986 the water pumps were shut off and the water in the mine gradually rose until it reached the level of the local water table, 40 feet below the surface. Miles of tunnels at lower levels are now underwater.

Because of this the tour was conducted entirely at the level behind the green doors.

The mountains for miles around are made of marble which extends downward for thousands of feet. Marble is a sedimentary rock, which means northern New Jersey was once at the bottom of a sea. The rock is made of shells and other organic material deposited over hundreds of thousands of even millions of years and later metamorphosed under pressure.

Black Smoker on Sea Floor in East Asia. The Photo Was Taken by the Submersible Alvin

In the seabed hydrothermal vents called black smokers formed around fault lines, reaching deep into the earth. Sea water percolated downward, eventually reaching hot, metal-rich seabed. The water, under intense pressure, could remain in liquid form at more than 700 degrees Fahrenheit and became saturated with minerals.

Eventually the superheated, supersaturated water was forced upward toward the sea floor. When it reached the frigid water at the bottom of the ocean it cooled and most of its dissolved content was precipitated in the form of metals, falling onto the sea floor. These mineral-rich areas of seabed are now evident in the form of veins in the marble of the mountains. The purpose of mining at Sterling Hill was to discover and follow these veins, removing the minerals and extracting the zinc.

Sterling Hill was a zinc mine, and the fluorescence of its minerals was at first unknown. Later, fluorescence was used to follow the veins of ore.

Today Sterling Hill Mine is known primarily for its fluorescent minerals-- although hundreds of millions of tons of rich zinc ore still lie underground.

The mountains are a rich source of fossils as well.

Inside the mine it was cool-- around 59 degrees-- and, due to water working its way downward from the surface, damp.

Flash photography was allowed, but the effects were better without flash.

The workings of the mine were illustrated by displays of mining equipment and manikins. That's Two-Finger Willie, above. His job was to make sure any rocks that missed the cart ended up in it. When the chute jammed he was expected to climb up it and dislodge the obstructions. This made for a hazardous job; as likely as not Willie would wind up in the cart under five tons of ore.

Willie's position was usually filled by newly-arrived, non-English-speaking European immigrants.

When we encountered a vein of ore, the tour guide snapped on short-wave ultraviolet lights and turned off the visible light. The result was an astonishing show of fluorescence.

We eventually arrived on the other side of the mountain; it was here zinc ore was first discovered, lying on the surface.

Recently, the face of this bluff was discovered to be entirely fluorescent. Funding is in place to build an enclosure around it and turn it into a huge display.

The unsmiling guy in the blue shirt managed to find his way into a lot of my photos.

At the end of the tour we were shown into the amazing Warren Museum of Fluorescence. I had a wonderful time there, but once again we were soon shown the door.

Some fluorescent rocks are attractive in visible light.

Others look like regular rocks.

I set the ISO ("film speed") on my Canon SLR to 1600, its fastest speed, but it wasn't enough under the low light conditions; the only source of light came from the glowing minerals. I found myself wishing for a newer camera with higher ISO settings. 6400 would have made for in-focus shots.

And so, since I haven't brought a tripod to stabilize my camera during long exposures, most of my photos turned out blurry. The following images are some of the best.

The following two photos are notable because I moved the camera during the long period of explore. I like the effect.

I left the museum with a sample of calcite that glowed vividly orange under the black light, a field guide of fluorescent minerals, and a burning desire to buy a portable short-wave ultraviolet light for field explorations.

The Atlanta area isn't notable for fluorescent minerals, but the North Georgia mountains and the mountains of North Carolina are mineral hot spots. I hope to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway this fall. If I do, I'll be sure to visit the various mineral museums along the way.