The Sterling Hill Mine, now known as the Sterling Hill Mine Tour & Museum of Fluorescence, is a former iron and zinc mine in Ogdensburg, Sussex County,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

, United States. It was the last working underground mine in New Jersey when it closed in 1986, and it became a museum in 1989. Along with the nearby Franklin Mine, it is known for its variety of minerals, especially the

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, ...

varieties. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1991.

History

Sterling-hill-mining-museum-inside-adit-portal

Mining began at the site in the 1630s, when it was mistakenly thought to be a copper deposit.

George III of the United Kingdom George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

granted the property to William Alexander, titled

Lord Stirling William Alexander, also known as Lord Stirling (1726 – 15 January 1783), was a Scottish-American major general during the American Revolutionary War. He was considered male heir to the Scottish title of Earl of Stirling through Scottish lin ...

. Stirling sold it to Robert Ogden in 1765. It went through several owners until the various mines were combined into the New Jersey Zinc Company in 1897. The mine closed in 1986 due to a tax dispute with the town, which foreclosed for back taxes in 1989 and auctioned the property to Richard and Robert Hauck for $750,000. It opened as a museum in August 1990.

Geology

The ore bodies at the Sterling Hill mine lie within a formation called the Reading Prong massif; the ores are contained within the Franklin Marble.Dunne, Pete J.
"Introduction to local geology".Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website.
Retrieved 2011-09-06. This was deposited as limestone in a

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 ...

oceanic rift trough.Dunne, Pete J.
"Regional geology".Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website.
Retrieved 2011-09-06. It subsequently underwent extensive metamorphosis during the

Grenville orogeny The Grenville orogeny was a long-lived Mesoproterozoic mountain-building event associated with the assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia. Its record is a prominent orogenic belt which spans a significant portion of the North American continent, f ...

, approximately 1.15 billion years ago.Wolf, Adam, John Rakovan, and Christopher Cahill.
"Ferroaxinite from Lime Crest Quarry, Sparta, New Jersey".
''Rocks & Minerals'', vol. 78 (July–August 2003), pp. 252-56. Retrieved 2011-09-06. Uplift and erosion during the late

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

and the

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

exposed the ore bodies at the surface; the glaciers of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

strewed trains of ore-bearing boulders for miles to the south, in places creating deposits large enough to be worked profitably.Dunne, Pete J.
"Local geology".Franklin & Sterling Hill Minerals website.
Retrieved 2011-09-06. In the area of the Franklin and Sterling Hill mines, 357 types of minerals are known to occur; these make up approximately 10% of the minerals known to science. Thirty-five of these minerals have not been found anywhere else. Ninety-one of the minerals fluoresce. There are of tunnels in the mine, going down to below the surface on the main shaft and on the lower shaft. As of 2017, other than the very top level of the mine (<100 ft), the entire lower section has been flooded due to underground water table and hence no longer accessible. The mine remains at constantly.

Museum

The tour spends about 30 minutes inside the Exhibit hall which contains a wide variety of mining memorabilia, mineralogical samples, fossils, and meteorites. It then leads into the mine for a walk on level ground through the underground mine. The walk goes through a new section called the Rainbow tunnel which they blasted in 1990 using 49 blasts and at a cost of $2 a foot. In the Rainbow room, short wave UV lights are turned on to demonstrate the entire tunnel and various samples glowing with fluorescence. The mine is also home to the Ellis Astronomical Observatory, the Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence, and a collection of mining equipment. The museum periodically arranges public mineral collecting sessions as well as more private and behind the scene events for local geology clubs.

References

Literature

* Robert W. Jones, ''Nature's hidden rainbows'', Ultra-Violet Products, Inc., San Gabriel Calif., 120 pp., 1964
(pdf 34MB)

External links

Sterling Hill Mining Museum
official website
Mindat.org entry for Sterling HillSterling Hill ore and rock samples
photo gallery {{authority control Geology of New Jersey Underground mines in the United States Mining museums in New Jersey Industry museums in New Jersey Museums in Sussex County, New Jersey Geology museums in New Jersey Mines in New Jersey National Register of Historic Places in Sussex County, New Jersey Ogdensburg, New Jersey New Jersey Register of Historic Places Museums established in 1989 1989 establishments in New Jersey