A Recent Visit to the Shangbao Mine - Xiaojun (John) Chen

A Recent Visit to the Shangbao Mine Xiaojun (John) Chen Shop No.008, Hongqiao Antique Town 3088 Yan An Xi Road Changning District, Shanghai City, China

I decided to make my first visit to the famous Shangbao mine on July 2, 2012. The trip from Shanghai began with a two-hour flight to Changsha, then a one-hour ride on a high-speed train to Leiyang. The Shangbao mine is located in Zhushan village near Leiyang city, Huangshi County in Hunan province. Reaching the Shangbao mine from Leiyang involved a one-hour drive over 40 km of rather poor muddy road, part of it passing through picturesque, forested mountainous areas.

There is a famous tourist site (a large bamboo forest) there named in honor of Cai Lun, an earlier pioneer in the art of papermaking. Visitors can take a taxi from Leiyang, asking the driver to go to “Cai Lun bamboo forest” and he will know what they mean even if he has never heard of the Shangbao mine, which is right nearby. A large sign (in Chinese and English) at the tourist overlook shows the layout of the forest paths and roads and the location of the mine, as well as other tourist facilities.

The locality is generally referred to as the “Shangbao pyrite mine,” previously the “Shangbao Huang mine.” It failed to turn a good profit when it was operated by the Changsha Government, and was sold to a group of former miners in the 1990s. They began mining for crystal specimens, but didn’t have a clear idea of specimen values. The mineral dealers in Changsha found that they could trade very inexpensive

materials (cups, towels, kettles, cigarettes) to the miners for specimens, but eventually the miners caught on, and prices increased.

The new owners have had some success in mining beautiful mineral specimen, especially in 2008 when a fine pocket of fluorite was discovered, but there is currently no mining going on for specimens. The main mine portal has been closed by a steel gate and locked. But there is still some potential for the future, as they are hoping to turn it into a tourist attraction. The owners applied to the government for financial assistance but the government declined to fund the project, so they are now trying to prepare the mine on their own. In 2010 they had the portal area rebuilt with an artistic façade of artificial rock, inscribed with the words “Shangbao Crystal Mine.” The main adit has been meticulously tiled with a vaulted roof for safety, and there are plans to do more development work underground that will facilitate tours for visitors. In the process they hope to recover more specimens as well. The mine has about 2000 meters of workings in the skarn zone on several levels extending to a depth of about 300 meters. They are still pumping water from the mine in order to keep the lower levels from flooding.

The summer weather was very hot at the time of my visit.

The mine owners set up chairs and a desk in front of the mine entrance so that we could enjoy the naturally cooled

Figure 43. Shangbao mine portal, mine buildings and parking lot. Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

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The Mineralogical Record, volume 43, September–October, 2012

Figure 44. Shangbao mine portal with artificial stone edifice added in 2010 (compare Fig. 2 from 2004). Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

Figure 45. The main adit into the Shangbao mine. Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

The Mineralogical Record, volume 43, September–October, 2012

Figure 46. “Exhibition Room” entrance at the Shangbao mine. Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

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Figure 47. Mineral displays in the Exhibition Room at the Shangbao mine. Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

Figure 48. Cabinet of specimens for sale at the Shangbao mine. Xiaojun Chen photo (2012).

air coming out of the mine. At the mine entrance one can see the tracks heading underground, and small specimens of pyrite can still be collected.

Adjacent to the mine is a small mine museum consisting of just a single room of about 50 square meters with glass cases displaying some large specimens from the mine—fluorite, dolomite, calcite, pyrite, green quartz, etc. There is a huge specimen in the middle of the room, a big piece of rock matrix with purple fluorite crystals which allows visitors to see how the fluorite occurs in the mine. There is another small room for the mine manager, and two wooden cabinets filled with specimens for sale, though the quality was not very good at the time of our visit.

The mine owners seem determined to make a success of their project to create a tourist attraction, and their chances seem good considering that many tourists already visit to the area to see the Cai Lun bamboo forest.

(Continued from page 603) were found between 1997 and 2000 and later in 2007. Specimens in which the quartz is partially overgrown by a thick crust of dolomite are distinctively marked as being from Shangbao; the quartz prisms which jut out from the dolomite coating reach 5 cm long.

As usual in China, all possible specimens have been treated with hydrochloric acid. When one of these specimens is forgotten and left in the acid too long, the dolomite disappears, and the quartz crystals on the resulting specimen are recognizable as scepters. Their formation can be explained as follows. At first, quartz formed as thin crystals from the solution still strongly enriched in calcium and magnesium, and then dolomite was precipitated around the quartz.

After the end of dolomite formation, however, some of the thin protruding quartz crystals continued to grow on exposed surfaces, and 606

thickened above the dolomite layer. These upper parts of the crystals are not strongly attached to the earlier-formed lower parts, and as a result of the heat generated by the acid treatment some of them are stressed, and fall off. Scepter quartz with pyrite, as formed from the dissolution of dolomite, makes for highly desirable specimens.

Some quartz crystals grew as scepters by a different means: they are actually slightly divergent individual clusters that become steadily thicker toward the termination.

Other Minerals Other species (aside from rock-forming minerals) that have been reported from the Shangbao mine area include cassiterite, chalcopyrite, columbite, fergusonite, monazite, pyrrhotite, scheelite, sphalerite, tantalite and a microlite group mineral (Chen et al., 2003; Lei et al., 2009).

The Mineralogical Record, volume 43, September–October, 2012

Figure 49 (above). Quartz crystal cluster with pyrite, 14 cm, from the Shangbao mine. Rob Lavinsky (The Arkenstone) specimen; Joe Budd photo.

Figure 50 (above right). Six-armed cluster of quartz crystals, XX cm, from the Shangbao mine. _______ collection; Jeff Scovil photo.

Figure 51 (right). Scepter quartz with pyrite, 11.8 cm, from the Shangbao mine.

Jürgen Tron collection; Jeff Scovil photo.

CONCLUSION Minerals from the Shangbao mine would have been much more expensive during its productive years if it were not for the simultaneous mining of decorator specimens to be sold to the domestic Chinese market. The most productive days of the mine may be over, but there is hope that if financing can be obtained to develop the property into a tourist attraction, more specimens will be recovered in the course of underground development work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to extend his gratitude to Andreas Massanek of the Freiberg Mining Academy for analyses and to Yunfu The Mineralogical Record, volume 43, September–October, 2012

Gao for inviting the author to visit the mine. Thanks also the Jeff Scovil, Rob Lavinsky, Jo Budd, Jordi Fabre, Sandor Fuss, Kevin Ward, Fuxiang Chen and Nick Nikiforou for specimen photography.

Wendell Wilson provided text editing, additional references and additional information for the species descriptions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY CHEN, Xiangli, JIN, Anhui, and XIE, Ciguo (2003) Occurrence of niobium and tantalum in the Nb-Ta deposit in weathered granite crust at Shangbao, Leiyang, Hunan Province. Acta Mineralogica Sinica, 23 (4), 323–326 [in Chinese with English abstract].

DONG, H., (ed.) (1996) The Discovery History of Mineral Deposits 607

of Hunan Province, China. [in Chinese with English abstract] Beijing: Geological Publishing House, chapter 96, 206–208.

JIANG, Xilu (2007) Pyrite, fluorite and quartz from the Shangbao mine [in Chinese]. In: Hunan Gem Mineral Deposits Atlas. Hunan Map Publishers, p. 25.

LEI, Zeheng, QIAO, Yusheng, and XU, Yi-Ming (2009) W-Sn Mineralization Characteristics and Exploration Potential of the Shangbao Mineral District, Hunan Province. [Chinese with English abstract] Geology and Exploration, 45 (2), 44–52.

LIU, G. (2006) Fine Minerals in China. AAA Minerals AG, 176–185.

OTTENS, B. (2004) Fluorit aus Shangbao. In: China, Schöne Steine aus dem Reich der Mitte. Mineralientage München 2004 [show catalog], p. 68–71.

OTTENS, B. (2008) Shangbao. In: Ottens, B. China, Mineralien– Fundstellen–Lagerstätten. 340–348.

TU, D. (1984) Inclusions in minerals in the Shangbao pyrite district, Hunan. Dizhi Lumping, 30 (3), 270–274 [in Chinese].

WHITE, J.S. (2004) The many mysteries of artichoke quartz from China. Rocks & Minerals, 79 (2), 118–123.

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The Mineralogical Record, volume 43, September–October, 2012