Specimen consisting of white, radiating sprays of acicular crystals of austinite, and small, greenish yellow prismatic crystals of adamite on a rust-colored liminotic gossan matrix. Collected from the Gold Hill mine, Deep Creek Mountains, Tooele County, Utah. Under short wave UV the austinite fluoresces white, and the adamite shows a classic green uranyl-activated response. The austinite (and possibly the adamite) also shows blue/white phosphorescence after short wave UV. Both adamite and austinite are zinc arsenate minerals. The size of this specimen is 67 x 55 x 42 mm, and it weighs 84 grams.
Click on thumbnail images above for full view of specimen and wavelength information.
Close-up view (field of view is approximately 24 x 15 mm). The austinite is seen as glassy, white to colorless, needle-like crystals, and the adamite is formed as smaller green/yellow prismatic crystals. Click on thumbnail images above for full view and wavelength information.
Shut down in 1945, the Gold Hill mine is a former producer of gold, silver, copper, arsenic, lead, zinc and barium, and is located in the Deep Creek Mountains of northwest Utah, approximately 10 miles east of the Nevada border.
Photographs of the Gold Hill mine location. Click on thumbnail images for full view.