Tourmaline discovery at the Cryo-Genie mine: San Diego County California
by Anthony R. Kampf, Ken Gochenour, Jim Clanin
What pegmatite prospector doesn't dream of discovering a pocket filled with giant tourmaline crystals? In October 2001, a small mining crew working a little-known pegmatite in north-central San Diego County, California, had their dreams come true. The remarkable 1.8 x 1.5 x 0.9-meter pocket at the Cryo-Genie mine yielded bright pink tourmaline crystals to 25 cm long and 10 cm across. It had been nearly a century since tourmaline crystals of this size had been found in southern California.
Location
The Cryo-Genie mine is located approximately 3.5 kilometers north-northwest of the town of Warner Springs and about 6 kilometers south of Chihuahua Valley in north-central San Diego County, California (N1/2 sec. 14, T. 10 S., R. 3 E., San Bernardino Meridian). The mine, the most southerly in the Chihuahua Valley pegmatite district, can be reached by taking the paved Lost Valley Road (formerly the Lost Valley Truck Trail) from State Route 79, west of Warner Springs. Approximately 4 kilometers from the turnoff, a dirt road on the right leads the last hundred meters to the mine. Note that this is an operating mine, and access is strictly prohibited except by permission of the claimholder, Dana Gochenour.
The Chihuahua Valley pegmatite district was first exploited in the early 1900s. The Cryo-Genie mine was originally claimed as the Lost Valley Truck Trail prospect and was first exploited in 1904. Other mines in the Chihuahua Valley district that were also located in the early 1900s include the Blue Tourmaline (Blue Lady, Blue Bell), French Pete (Peter Cabal, Elinor), and Pearson. According to Schaller (1916), the Blue Tourmaline claim was discovered in 1905 by Bert Simmons, who worked it extensively for gem tourmaline in 1906. The discovery of a pocket of cassiterite here in 1915 created a small flurry of interest in tin; however, further exploration was unproductive. Tucker and Reed (1939) staled that the French Pete mine was reputed to have produced about $5,000 worth of tourmaline. They also described the Pearson deposit as a large deposit of high-grade feldspar and silica. Apparently, little mining book place in the district during the next several decades. Sinkankas (1959) mentioned minor production of tourmaline, smoky quartz, and aquamarine from the Pearson mine during the mid-1950s.
About 1967 a Mr. Staley located and claimed the Blue Chihuahua (Blue Dog) mine north of Chihuahua Valley, just over the county line into Riverside County (Al Ordway, pers. com., 2002). The claim was subsequently acquired by Josie Scripps, Al Ordway, and Bob Bartsch. The mine produced fine herderite crystals as well as schorl and topaz (Larson 1977) and was considered worked out by early 1969.
In the early 1980s the Blue Tourmaline claim, under the new name Blue Lady mine, was worked by Bill Magee, who produced some fine specimens of beryl (morganite, aquamarine, and goshenite), spessartine, quartz, schorl, and elbaite. During the last two decades, several collectors--notably Ordway, Nick Rose, Jon Page, and the Gochenour family--prospected other pegmatites in the district, especially in the immediate vicinity north of the Blue Chihuahua, finding modest quantities of crystallized herderite, beryl, and topaz as well as quartz, albite, microcline, muscovite, and schorl.
Little is known of the early history of the Lost Valley Truck Trail prospect, but Weber (1963) mentioned a personal communication (1958) from R. R. Dye of Warner Springs stating that it had probably been worked in the 1910s or 1920s and that it consisted of shallow cuts and trenches along the outcrop. Weber gave a cursory description of the structure and mineralogy of the pegmatite and noted that thin pale blue, pale pink, and colorless tourmaline crystals were found that averaged less than 0.5-1 inch (1.3-2.5 cm) in length.
In 1962 the San Diego Mineral Society claimed the deposit as the Lindy B mine. In 1974 the mine was claimed by Bart Cannon of Seattle, Washington, who named it the Cryo-Genie. Cannon explored an existing decline on the property, which probably dated from the earliest working of the deposit. At first he used hand tools; beginning in 1977 he employed rock drills and powder. His last mining effort on the property was conducted in late November 1984, with the Gochenours as collecting partners. The decline was extended 3 meters using air-driven tools and explosives. Work concluded when the compressor broke, but not before a basketball-sized pocket was uncovered at the lowest point. It yielded a 6-cm morganite on a large crystal plate of cleavelandite and quartz. Also found were a dozen 2.5-cm pale pink tourmaline crystals with green caps in columnar groups standing on the flat terminations of schorls that were 2.5 cm across (Cannon, pers. com., 2002).
The origin of the name Cryo-Genie deserves some explanation. The first tourmalines that Cannon found at the mine back in 1974 were transparent blue pencils. He judged that their color was identical to a woman's gel-type deodorant of those days named "Ice Blue Secret." According to Bart, "Ice Blue" mutated in his mind to "cryo-genic" and then to "Cryo-Genie" as he probed around the pocket.
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