The Southeast Missouri Lead District, commonly called the Lead Belt, is a

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

mining district in the southeastern part of

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. Counties in the Lead Belt include Saint Francois, Crawford,

Dent Dent may refer to: People * Dent (surname) * Dent May (active 2007), American musician * Dent Mowrey (1888–1960), American composer, musician and music teacher * Dent Oliver (1918–1973), international speedway rider Places France * Dent d' ...

Iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

, Reynolds, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. This mining district is the most important and critical lead producer in the United States.http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/5140/pdf/Chapter1.pdf Seeger, Cheryl M., ''History of Mining in the Southeast Missouri Lead District and Description of Mine Processes, Regulatory Controls, Environmental Effects, and Mine Facilities in the Viburnum Trend Subdistrict'' in Kleeschulte, M.J., ed., 2008, Hydrologic investigations concerning lead mining issues in southeastern Missouri: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2008–5140, Chapter 1

History

The potential for lead mining in Southeast Missouri was first discovered and documented in 1700 by Father James Gravier. Philip Francois Renault of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

led a large exploratory mission in 1719 and started mining operations in Old Mines and Mine La Motte in 1720, establishing the first lead mining subdistrict of Mine LaMotte-Fredericktown. Between the 1750s and 1799, production of lead in the region decreased. In 1799, Moses Austin settled in Potosi, originally known as

Mine a Breton Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging * Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

, bringing new mining methods and practices that revitalized lead mining in the district.

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

was the first to sink deep mine shafts and start smelting operations, dramatically increasing lead production. Before this time, lead mines had been surface or near-surface mines of less than 10 feet in depth. In 1808, Moses Austin and Samuel Hammond established the city of

Herculaneum Herculaneum (; Neapolitan and it, Ercolano) was an ancient town, located in the modern-day ''comune'' of Ercolano, Campania, Italy. Herculaneum was buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Like the n ...

as a shipping point closer to the mining region, replacing Ste. Genevieve as the main shipping point to and from the mining district on the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

. The Old Lead Belt Subdistrict was established in 1864 with the opening of the

Bonne Terre Mine Bonne Terre Mine, also known as the St. Joseph Lead Mine at Bonne Terre, is a historic lead mine located at Bonne Terre, St. Francois County, Missouri. Bonne Terre Mine was built starting in 1864 by the St. Joe Lead Company, and is located b ...

by the St. Joseph Lead Company. Notable mines in the subdistrict region included the

, and mines near Doe Run, Desloge, Flat River ( Park Hills), and Leadwood. In 1972, the last Old Lead Belt mine at Flat River closed, ending 108 years of lead mining in the Old Lead Belt. The area of mining has changed over the years. The Old Lead Belt is centered on Park Hills and Desloge, while the New Lead Belt or Viburnum Trend is near Viburnum. The

Irish Wilderness The Irish Wilderness is a wilderness area in the U.S. State of Missouri. The U.S. Congress designated it a wilderness in 1984. The Irish Wilderness is located within the Eleven Point Ranger District of the Mark Twain National Forest, northeast ...

Ripley Ripley may refer to: People and characters * Ripley (name) * ''Ripley'', the test mannequin aboard the first International Space Station space station Dragon 2 space test flight Crew Dragon Demo-1 * Ellen Ripley, a fictional character from the Al ...

and

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Counties has significant lead ore; however, this is a protected wilderness area. Significant among Missouri's lead mining concerns in the district was the Desloge family and

Desloge Consolidated Lead Company Desloge Consolidated Lead Company was a lead mining company in the Southeast Missouri Lead District that was operated by the Desloge family in the 19th and early 20th century. The Desloge lead operations in the " Old Lead Belt", in the eastern Oza ...

in Desloge, Missouri and Bonne Terre—having been active in lead trading, mining and smelting from 1823 in Potosi to 1929. Lead mining operations were consolidated under the control of St. Joe Lead. In the late 1940s, reserves in the Old Lead Belt began to decline, spurring new mineral exploration in the Southeast Missouri region. In 1955, the St. Joseph Lead Company discovered a new orebody near Viburnum, Missouri, leading to the opening of the Viburnum No. 27 Mine in 1960. The St. Joseph Lead Company, Cominco, Kennecott Copper, Amax, Inc., and

Asarco Asarco LLC (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999. Its three larg ...

companies conducted exploration that led to the opening of 10 additional mines, establishing what is known today as the Viburnum Trend, also called the New Lead Belt. The Viburnum Trend is the only subdistrict mined for lead in the Southeast Missouri Lead District in modern day. Six lead mines are currently operational in 2022: the Brushy Creek, Buick, Casteel, Fletcher, and Sweetwater mines. Today, many of the mines and mills of the Old Lead Belt have been abandoned or repurposed. Bonne Terre has large subterranean mines, now used commercially for recreational tourism and scuba diving. The Missouri Mines State Historic Site occupies the retired Federal Mill No. 3 in Park Hills.

Mineralogy and geology

The formal geological name for the Lead Belt is the "Southeastern Missouri Mississippi Valley-type Mineral District." It contains the highest concentration of

galena Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver. Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It cr ...

(lead(II) sulfide) in the world as well as significant economic quantities of

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and currently mined sub-economic quantities of metals such as

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12 element, group 12, zinc and mercury (element), mercury. Li ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow t ...

and

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

. Most of the mined ore minerals are found as

sulfides Sulfide (British English also sulphide) is an inorganic anion of sulfur with the chemical formula S2− or a compound containing one or more S2− ions. Solutions of sulfide salts are corrosive. ''Sulfide'' also refers to chemical compounds la ...

, with the primary ore minerals

and

sphalerite Sphalerite (sometimes spelled sphaelerite) is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula . 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-V ...

, with minor sulfides

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Iron, FeSulfur, S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic Luster (mineralogy), lust ...

chalcopyrite Chalcopyrite ( ) is a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. It has the chemical formula CuFeS2 and crystallizes in the tetragonal system. It has a brassy to golden yellow color and a hardness of 3.5 to 4 on the Mo ...

bornite Bornite, also known as peacock ore, is a sulfide mineral with chemical composition Cu5 Fe S4 that crystallizes in the orthorhombic system (pseudo-cubic). Appearance Bornite has a brown to copper-red color on fresh surfaces that tarnishes to v ...

, enargite, millerite, and

arsenopyrite Arsenopyrite ( IMA symbol: Apy) is an iron arsenic sulfide (FeAsS). It is a hard ( Mohs 5.5-6) metallic, opaque, steel grey to silver white mineral with a relatively high specific gravity of 6.1. When dissolved in nitric acid, it releases elem ...

Gangue In mining, gangue () is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. It is thus distinct from overburden, which is the waste rock or materials overlying an ore or mineral body ...

minerals associated with the economic minerals include marcasite,

calcite Calcite is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, based on scratc ...

dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...

, and

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

Sulfide Sulfide (British English also sulphide) is an inorganic anion of sulfur with the chemical formula S2− or a compound containing one or more S2− ions. Solutions of sulfide salts are corrosive. ''Sulfide'' also refers to chemical compounds la ...

and

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate ...

mineral specimens are highly prized by gem and mineral collectors and are found in museums worldwide. The ore minerals of the Old Lead Belt are hosted in the dolomite of the lower Bonneterre Formation, and can extend into the underlying Lamotte Sandstone and rarely into the overlying Davis Formation. In the Viburnum Trend, lead-zinc ore mineralization is hosted in the bacterial

stromatolite Stromatolites () or stromatoliths () are layered sedimentary formations ( microbialite) that are created mainly by photosynthetic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria, sulfate-reducing bacteria, and Pseudomonadota (formerly proteobacteria). T ...

reefs dolomites of the upper Bonneterre Formation, and most orebodies are concentrated in areas where the Lamotte Sandstone pinches out against

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...

igneous knobs and ridges. The Upper

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million years ago ...

age Bonneterre Formation was deposited in a shallow sea around the

age St. Francois Mountains, which formed an island

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arch ...

. Ore mineralization most likely occurred during the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleo ...

, when low-temperature hydrothermal metal-rich brines migrated through the

Ozarks The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant port ...

during the

Ouachita orogeny The Ouachita orogeny was a mountain-building event that resulted in the folding and faulting of strata currently exposed in the Ouachita Mountains. The more extensive Ouachita system extends from the current range in Arkansas and Oklahoma southe ...

in the Late Paleozoic.Guilbert, John M. and Charles F. Park, Jr., ''The Geology of Ore Deposits,'' Freeman, 1986 pp. 890-901 Ore mineralization in the Lead Belt occurred as part of the same mineralization event, however, the intensity of mineralization and depositional controls differ between the Viburnum Trend and Old Lead Belt. In the Old Lead Belt,

is more fine-grained and disseminated into the host rock, and large, euhedral crystals are rare. Ore is mostly constrained to the lower 60 feet of the Bonneterre Formation, and preferentially follow the lateral sedimentary beds and features. In the Viburnum Trend, zinc and copper are found in higher concentrations, and galena was able to form larger, more

euhedral Euhedral crystals (also known as idiomorphic or automorphic crystals) are those that are well-formed, with sharp, easily recognised faces. The opposite is anhedral (also known as '' xenomorphic'' or ''allotriomorphic''): a rock with an anhedr ...

crystals. Ore mineralization in this subdistrict is prominently emplaced along collapse breccias, and not as influenced by lateral sedimentary features as in the Old Lead Belt. Ore in the Viburnum Trend can be found throughout the entire vertical extent of the Bonneterre Formation, but is mostly constrained to the upper 75 feet.

Production

The Lead Belt produces about 70% of the US primary supply of lead, and significant amounts of the nation's zinc. In the year 2000, Missouri produced 313,105 tons, with an estimated value of $128,838,880, according to Missouri DNR Data. About 84% of the lead is used for lead–acid batteries, and a secondary smelter in

Boss, Missouri Boss is an unincorporated rural hamlet in eastern Dent County, Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iow ...

recycles lead–acid batteries. Another major consumer of Missouri lead is Winchester Ammunition, located in

East Alton, Illinois East Alton is a village in Madison County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,301 at the 2010 census. History East Alton was incorporated as a village in 1893 (some say 1894). William Cobb, namesake of Cobb Street, was one of the fir ...

. From 1720 to its closure in 1959, the Mine La Motte-Fredericktown Subdistrict produced over 325,000 tons of

. From 1864 to 1972, over 8.5 million tons of

was produced from the Old Lead Belt Subdistrict. The Viburnum Trend is the only subdistrict still in production, and is primarily mined by The

Doe Run Company The Doe Run Resources Corporation, known by the trade name The Doe Run Company, is a privately held natural resources company and global producer of lead, copper, and zinc concentrates. It owns four mills, six mines and a lead battery recycling pl ...

. From 1960 to 2022, The

has reported that nearly 315 million tons of ore has been extracted from the Viburnum Trend.

Communities in the Lead Belt

References

External links

Missouri Mines State Historic Site

Map of the Mineral resources of Missouri

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

{{Coord, 37.5, -90.5, format=dms, display=title, region:US-MO_scale:1000000 Regions of Missouri Mining in Missouri Metallogenetic provinces St. Francois Mountains Ozarks Lead mining