Climax mine
Encyclopedia
Lake County, Colorado
Lake County is one of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The highest natural point in Colorado and the entire Rocky Mountains is the summit of Mount Elbert in Lake County at 14,440 feet elevation. The county population was 7,812 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat...
and Summit
Summit County, Colorado
Summit County is the 19th most populous of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 23,538 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Breckenridge...
counties, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. In its heyday, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world, and for many years it supplied three-fourths of the world's supply of molbdenum. The mine is currently (2011) inactive, but is in the process of a complete rebuild and will reopen.
History
The prospector Charles Senter discovered and claimed the outcropping of molybdenite (molybdenum sulfide) veins in 1879, during the LeadvilleLeadville, Colorado
Leadville is a Statutory City that is the county seat of, and the only municipality in, Lake County, Colorado, United States. Situated at an elevation of , Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States...
, Colorado, Silver Boom
Colorado Silver Boom
The Colorado Silver Boom was a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U.S. state of Colorado in the late 19th century. The boom started in 1879 with the discovery of silver at Leadville...
, but he had no idea what the mineral he found was. Senter quickly determined that the rock contained no gold or silver, but he kept the claims anyway. The following year he settled down to live with his Ute Indian wife in a cabin a few miles north, and he made a living working a nearby gold placer. Each year he faithfully did the assessment work required to keep his lode claims, convinced that his mystery mineral must be worth something but he died penniless, before any real value could be placed on either the mineral or the property.
Although Senter finally found a chemist who identified the gray mineral as containing molybdenum
Molybdenum
Molybdenum , is a Group 6 chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42. The name is from Neo-Latin Molybdaenum, from Ancient Greek , meaning lead, itself proposed as a loanword from Anatolian Luvian and Lydian languages, since its ores were confused with lead ores...
in 1895, at the time there was virtually no market for the metal. When steelmakers found the usefulness of molybdenum as an alloy in producing very hard steel, the first ore shipments from the deposit began in 1915, and the Climax mine began full production in 1914. The main ore bearing area was Bartlett Mountain, which was mined out during the early mining. But the demand for molybdenum fell drastically at the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and the Climax mine shut down in 1919. Molybdenum later found use in the metal alloys for the turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
s of jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...
s.
The Climax Molybdenum Company re-opened the mine in 1924, and it operated the mine nearly continuously until the 1980s. The mine has been shut down since 1995, awaiting higher molybdenum prices. The mine's current owner, Freeport-McMoRan
Freeport-McMoRan
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., often called simply Freeport, is the world's lowest-cost copper producer and one of the world's largest producers of gold...
Copper & Gold, continues to work on environmental cleanup of past operations while holding the mine ready in the event of market changes.
In December 2007 Freeport-McMoRan reported that it planned to reopen the Climax mine and that production should start in 2010. An initial $500-million project involves the restart of open-pit mining and construction of state-of-the-art milling facilities. The company stated that the Climax mine has "... the largest, highest-grade and lowest-cost molybdenum ore body in the world.". The remaining ore reserves are estimated to contain about 500 million pounds of molybdenum, contained in ore at an average molybdenum percentage of 0.165%. Production was expected to be about 30 million pounds per year, starting in 2010.
However, Freeport-McMoRan announced in November 2008 that it had deferred plans to reopen the Climax mine, due to lower molybdenum prices. The company had spent about $200 million preparing for a restart of the mine, with an estimated $350 million more needed to reopen. Again, in May 2011, mining operations at Climax are anticipated to resume, albeit at a reduced level relative to its heyday.
Geology
The ore deposit is a porphyryPorphyry copper deposit
Porphyry copper deposits are copper orebodies which are associated with porphyritic intrusive rocks and the fluids that accompany them during the transition and cooling from magma to rock. Circulating surface water or underground fluids may interact with the plutonic fluids...
type, similar to many large copper deposits, where many intersecting small veins of molybdenite form a stockwork
Stockwork
In geology, a stockwork is a complex system of structurally controlled or randomly oriented veins. Stockworks are common in many ore deposit types and especially notable in greisens. They are also referred to as stringer zones....
in an altered quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite
Quartz monzonite is an intrusive igneous rock that has an approximately equal proportion of orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars. The plagioclase is typically intermediate to sodic in composition, andesine to oligoclase. Quartz is present in significant amounts. Biotite and/or hornblende...
porphyry
Porphyry (geology)
Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrix or groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts...
. Like other porphyry-type ore deposits, the ore is low-grade, much less than one percent molybdenum, but the ore bodies are very large. Beside molybdenum, the mine has also produced tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
(from cassiterite
Cassiterite
Cassiterite is a tin oxide mineral, SnO2. It is generally opaque, but it is translucent in thin crystals. Its luster and multiple crystal faces produce a desirable gem...
), tungsten
Tungsten
Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...
(from hübnerite
Hübnerite
Hübnerite or hubnerite is a mineral consisting of manganese tungstate . It is the manganese endmember of the manganese - iron wolframite solid solution series....
), and pyrite
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, is an iron sulfide with the formula FeS2. This mineral's metallic luster and pale-to-normal, brass-yellow hue have earned it the nickname fool's gold because of its resemblance to gold...
as by-products.
The Climax deposit is one of a number of large molybdenum deposits in central Colorado and northern New Mexico. Other molybdenum deposits in the region include the Questa
Questa, New Mexico
Questa is a village in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 1,864 at the 2000 census. Located on the Enchanted Circle scenic highway, near the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Red River, Questa is the least tourist-oriented town on the route...
mine in New Mexico, and the Henderson
Henderson molybdenum mine
The Henderson molybdenum mine is a large underground molybdenum mine west of the town of Empire in Clear Creek County, Colorado, USA. The Henderson mine, which has produced molybdenum since 1976, is owned by Freeport-McMoRan....
and Urad mines near Empire, Colorado
Empire, Colorado
The historic Town of Empire is a Statutory Town located in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. The population was 355 at the U.S. Census 2000. The town is a former mining settlement that flourished during the Colorado Silver Boom in the late 19th century. It is located in the valley Clear...
.
Mining
Mining was principally by "sub-level induced panel caving", a method that removed ore by undercutting the base of a panel in the ore deposit, causing the rock above to break and drop down in a controlled manner. The method allowed economical extraction of the large low-grade ore deposit.The ore was crushed on-site, and the molybdenite
Molybdenite
Molybdenite is a mineral of molybdenum disulfide, MoS2. Similar in appearance and feel to graphite, molybdenite has a lubricating effect that is a consequence of its layered structure. The atomic structure consists of a sheet of molybdenum atoms sandwiched between sheets of sulfur atoms...
was separated from the waste material by froth flotation
Froth flotation
Froth flotation is a process for selectively separating hydrophobic materials from hydrophilic. This is used in several processing industries...
. The large quantities of waste, called tailings, were placed behind tailings dams in the adjacent drainage to the north. The Climax tailing impoundment now covers several square miles.
Geography
The Climax mine is located at 39°21′57"N 106°11′09"W (39.365890,-106.185780) at an elevation of about 11,360 feet (3465 meters). It is located on Fremont PassFremont Pass (Colorado)
Fremont Pass is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States.It forms the continental divide on the border between Lake County and Summit County. The pass is named for John C. Fremont, an explorer of the American West who discovered the pass while traversing...
along the Continental Divide.
Further reading
- PD Press Release (April 5, 2006) Phelps Dodge Board of Directors Conditionally Approves Restart of Climax Molybdenum Mine near Leadville, Colo. http://www.phelpsdodge.com/NR/rdonlyres/AD4AE73C-695C-4E5F-AC6C-1412A71A91D8/0/News040506Climaxrestartfinal.pdf