Colorado Mineral Collecting Locations

Under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow
Last update: January 12, 2018 -- Email me at ajs@frii.com

From Pete Modreski, USGS Denver, March 2017. Reformatted, HTMLized, and posted with Pete's permission.

Pete's Top Ten List
= places you can actually still go collect minerals, not just "localities that have produced Colorado's greatest mineral specimens":

1. Crystal Peak area (smoky quartz, amazonite)
2. Mount Antero - Mount White (aquamarine)
3. Tarryall Mountains (topaz)
4. Sedalia copper mine (almandine garnet)
5. Calumet iron mine (epidote, actinolite, magnetite)
6. Hartsel (barite)
7. Book Cliffs area, Grand Junction (barite)
8. Last Chance mine, Creede (sowbelly agate)
9. Del Norte area (thundereggs/plume agate)
10. North Table Mountain (zeolite minerals)

Wait, there's more -- not to omit,

Honorable Mention #1 - Stoneham area (barite)
Honorable Mention #2 - St. Peters Dome (riebeckite, astrophyllite, zircon)

and (in no special order):

Colorado rhodochrosite (Sweet Home mine + more)
Colorado diamonds (Larimer County)
San Juan mountains (all the rest of them)
South Park peridot
Parker/Elizabeth petrified wood
Colorado turquoise (Turquoise Chief mine, etc)
Colorado amethyst (several localities)
Italian Mountain lapis lazuli
Brown Derby pegmatite mine (elbaite, lepidolite)
Crystal Mountain pegmatite district (schorl, beryl)