Bisbee
Bisbee, Arizona: the Copper Queen mine, found 1877 and worked to 1975, its azurite and malachite, and shattuckite, a copper species first found at Bisbee.
Bisbee, in the Warren district of Cochise County, Arizona, is a copper camp whose Copper Queen mine was discovered in 1877 and ceased production in 1975 (USGS MRDS). Handbook sheets name Bisbee for azurite and malachite, and Bisbee's Shattuck mine is the type locality of shattuckite, a blue copper silicate of hardness about 3.5.
In short
- The USGS record. MRDS 10046248 calls the Copper Queen the original copper mine of the Warren district. It gives discovery in 1877 and first production in 1881. Its history note says the mine ceased production in 1975. Ore is high-grade copper carbonates with minor lead and zinc carbonates in irregular replacement bodies, mainly in limestone.
- The pit came later. MRDS 10046238 gives the Lavender Pit first production in 1950 and last production in 1974; its own comment says 1951 to 1974. Both records name Phelps Dodge Corp. as owner. The pit record lists turquoise among its materials.
- What the Handbook says. The Handbook of Mineralogy sheets name Bisbee for azurite and malachite (the Copper Queen and other mines of the Warren district), large crystals of cuprite and brochantite, and native copper.
- Three type-locality names. The shattuckite sheet names the species for the Shattuck mine. The henryite sheet marks the Campbell mine [TL]. The graemite sheet’s first reference is titled Graemite, a new Bisbee mineral. The IMA list gives USA for all three.
- Worked copper content: cuprite, Cu2O, is 88.82% copper by mass, malachite 57.48%, azurite 55.31% and shattuckite 48.43%. Azurite has a pale blue streak and malachite a pale green one, as the sheets print them.
| Species | Formula (Handbook) | Hardness | Density | Handbook wording for Bisbee | IMA status, year, country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azurite | Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2 | 3.5–4 | 3.773 | “fine examples from the Copper Queen and other mines of the Warren district” | G, 1824, France |
| Malachite | Cu2(CO3)(OH)2 | 3.5–4 | 4.05 | “from the Copper Queen, Czar, and other mines in the Warren district” | G, year and country not given |
| Cuprite | Cu2O | 3.5–4 | 6.14 | “large crystals from Bisbee” | G, 1845, Germany |
| Copper | Cu | 2.5–3 | 8.95 | “the Copper Queen and other mines at Bisbee” | G, year and country not given |
| Brochantite | Cu4(SO4)(OH)6 | 3.5–4 | 3.97 | “large crystals from Bisbee” | — |
| Spangolite | Cu6Al(SO4)Cl(OH)12·3H2O | 2 on {0001}, 3 on inclined faces | 3.135–3.141 | “large crystals in the Copper Queen, Czar, and Southwest mines” | G, 1890, USA |
| Paramelaconite | Cu1+2Cu2+2O3 | 4.5 | 6.04–6.11 | “From the Copper Queen mine, Bisbee” | G, 1891, USA |
| Shattuckite | Cu5(SiO3)4(OH)2 | ~3.5 | 4.11 | “in the Shattuck mine”; named for it as type locality | Rd, 1967 s.p., USA |
| Graemite | CuTe4+O3·H2O | 3–3.5 | 4.13 | “from the Cole shaft and in the Shattuck mine” | A, 1974-022, USA |
| Henryite | Cu4Ag3Te4; IMA: (Cu,Ag)3+xTe2 | n.d. | n.d. | “From the Campbell mine, Bisbee” [TL] | A, 1982-094, USA |
Where Bisbee is and what the USGS record says
Position. USGS MRDS record 10046248 puts the Copper Queen about 1.5 miles northwest of Lowell, in the Warren district of Cochise County, at 1,652 m. It lists Bisbee as an included site and points to separate records for the Lavender Pit, the Sacramento mine and the Cochise deposit.
Geology. The host rocks are the Escabrosa, Naco and Martin limestones, Cambrian to Mississippian in age. The associated intrusions are the Juniper Flat Granite and the Sacramento stock, a quartz porphyry, both dated at about 170 Ma in the record. MRDS classes the deposit as polymetallic replacement, porphyry copper and skarn-related porphyry copper. Ore bodies lie near dikes and sills, and along faults and breccias.
The workings. The record describes a maze of workings covering nearly half a square mile, with a vertical range of about 950 ft. The shafts it names are Czar, Queen Inclined, Holbrook, Spray, Gardner and Hayes. Its ore list includes anglesite, bornite, chalcocite, copper, cuprite, delafossite, gold and malachite, with pyrite and quartz as gangue. That is an ore list, not a specimen list. Other localities are on the localities index.
Which minerals the Handbook places at Bisbee
Read from the sheets. Method: a script reads the Distribution field (from Distribution: to the next Name:) of each sheet named here, as pdftotext -layout text, strips diacritics, expands ligatures, joins line breaks and matches case-insensitively. The pattern Bisbee, Warren district or Copper Queen matches the ten sheets in the table and also aragonite (in caves at Bisbee), aurichalcite, bornite, calcite, chalcoalumite, chalcocite, chalcopyrite, connellite, coquimbite, cyanotrichite, hemimorphite, langite, romerite (the Copper Queen mine), rosasite, siderite and variscite (the Cole mine). Those are only the sheets read for this page; the Handbook has many more, so this is a floor, not a species list.
Cochise County is not Bisbee. The wulfenite sheet names the Defiance mine at Gleeson and the Hilltop mine in the Chiricahua Mountains, both in Cochise County, and not Bisbee. The cryptomelane sheet names the Oregon-Prompter mine at Tombstone. A label that says only “Cochise Co.” does not mean Bisbee.
Documented negatives. The turquoise, smithsonite and goethite sheets we fetched do not name Bisbee. Turquoise is placed at the Lavender Pit by the USGS record’s materials list, not by the Handbook. The full species pages, including aurichalcite, chalcoalumite and turquoise, are on the species index.
Shattuckite, graemite and henryite: the Bisbee type localities
Shattuckite. The sheet says the name is for the type locality, the Shattuck mine, Bisbee. It is deep to medium blue and silky, H ~3.5 (read from the rendered sheet) and D 4.11. The same sheet also names Tantara and M’Sesa in Katanga; see Katanga Copperbelt. The IMA list records it as Rd, 1967 s.p., USA.
Graemite and henryite. Graemite is blue-green to jade-green, H 3–3.5. It honours Richard Graeme of Phelps Dodge, who found the first specimen; IMA 1974-022, USA. Henryite is a copper silver telluride that the sheet marks [TL] at the Campbell mine. The Handbook writes Cu4Ag3Te4 and the IMA list (Cu,Ag)3+xTe2 [x ~ 0.4]; both are shown, attributed. IMA 1982-094, USA.
Two older names. The spangolite sheet says the original specimen was found “within a radius of 200 miles of Tombstone” [almost certainly from Bisbee]. Paramelaconite’s first-listed locality is the Copper Queen mine. The IMA list gives USA for both, 1890 and 1891. For what the term means, see what is a type locality.
1877, 1881, 1950, 1974, 1975: the Bisbee dates
- 1877: discovery of the Copper Queen (MRDS 10046248). The record’s note says the claim was staked by George Warren, drawn by outcrops of cerussite.
- 1881: first production at the Copper Queen (same record). The note says the orebody ran 23% copper.
- 1950: first production at the Lavender Pit (MRDS 10046238); its comment gives 1951.
- 1974: last production at the Lavender Pit.
- 1975: the Copper Queen ceased production, according to the note in its record.
A production line to read carefully. The Lavender Pit record carries a figure from Keith (1973): 171,045,000 t of ore at 2 wt% copper for the period 1885–1973. Worked, that is 3,420,900 t of contained copper. The period starts 65 years before the pit’s first production year, so it cannot be the pit alone; the record does not say what it covers, and we do not guess.
What the dates do not say. The records give mining dates, not collecting dates. No source we fetched says when particular specimen finds were made, and this page says nothing about whether anyone may collect there.
Azurite or malachite: reading a Bisbee copper carbonate
Streak first. Azurite’s sheet gives a pale blue streak and malachite’s a pale green one. Both are H 3.5–4. Azurite measures D 3.773 and malachite 4.05, so a 20 g piece weighs 14.70 g and 15.06 g in water: too close to sort a mixed specimen by heft. See how to use a streak plate.
Worked copper content. On standard atomic weights azurite, Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2, is 55.31% copper and malachite, Cu2(CO3)(OH)2, 57.48%. Cuprite, Cu2O, is 88.82%. The Copper Queen record notes that its malachite is suitable for cutting and polishing into gem material; it is the USGS’s note, not a grading.
On a label. Copper Queen mine, Bisbee, Warren district, Cochise County, Arizona, USA is what the sources support. A named shaft (Czar, Holbrook, Spray) or the Shattuck or Campbell mine adds provenance; see how to label and catalogue a mineral collection. Nothing here is offered for sale; the wanted list is the only commercial route.