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Alfredo Petrov arranged a surprise trip for me when I visited him in Peekskill... And what a surprise... I was invited to go to the Sterling Hill !!
I never expected to come to the Sterling Hill. The Sterling Hill mine is one of a handfull of the most mineral-rich and famous mines in the world.
Alfredo picked me up from the Peekskill trainstation and we had a drive through the beautiful frozen landscape.
The first thing that hit me when we entered the mining museum was the warm and very welcome feeling that Dick Hauck gave us! Dick made me feel at home from the first moment we entered. Of course he knows everything about the mine and its history, but first of all he made me feel welcome. That will make me come back for sure...
First Dick showed us around in the mining museum, which was great. It looks like the miners left yesterday and put down their tools to pick them up again the day later... There's a lot there for children to touch and play with, which I think is a good thing. One must not be silent in a museum and "behave like an adult", but children should be children and become enthousiastic about mining&minerals and understand why mining is important for our everyday luxury life. (By the way: a lot of adults I know of behave like children, usually politicians and other so-called 'important' people). Well, here in the Sterling Hill museum children can still be enthousiastic children, and we "adults" are able to play with them :-)
After visiting the museum we walked out in the still freezing Ogdensburg spring, and walked towards the Sterling Hill mine itself. We walked for an hour or so underground. The mine itself is flooded. The visitors mine is on the first level of the mine. When the mine closed, most of the equipment was still there, so the mine is very lively and realistic. The incline shaft is visible from the inside. The hauling machine is still there, etc etc. It's really worth visiting the mine. I will make a separate page on the mine (and the "Rainbow Room" there!). After visiting the mine we left through a "backdoor" and went outside into the Noble Pit and Passaic Pit. These are older surface workings, which are now reworked for mineral specimens. I will make a separate page on those surface pits also. And, last but not least, we went to the Fluorescent Museum of the mine, of which I made the pictures below....
(text and pictures by FdW)
The Fluorescent Museum of the mine is sensational...! I never was interested in fluorescent minerals. And by saying "not interested" I mean "completely not interested". But after visiting this museum my eyes were physically opened, by force, and now I'm desperate to go back here again for a real serious visit ;-)
To see a fluorescent specimen somewhere on a mineral fair or in a-small-painted-black-mineral-cabinet is one thing, but to see hundreds of multi-coloured "rainbowed" fluorescent specimens in meter-long-cabinets is another thing. These specimens here really light up like a christmas-tree-on-fire-overthrown-by-napalm... I only had my shitty little digital camera with me, so sorry for the bad pictures, but when you're able to go to this museum, go go go ;-) It's just an hour and 15 minutes drive from New York... With the current 1,5 USdollar to the Euro just fly to NYC, rentacar, and visit this museum, drive to Franklin and visit the other museum, have fun in Manhattan, and visit the American Museum of Natural History. That trip will bring you 4 days of unforgettable fun...
By the way: after visiting the museum. Dick Hauck took us underground in the Sterling Hill mine.
If you're searching for mineralogical articles on this locality (geonieuws-1982-04-83-usa-new-jersey-franklin, geonieuws-1998-01-11-usa-new jersey-franklin, minrec-1991-0910-367-usa-new-jersey-franklin-sterling-hill, minrec-1991-1112-465-usa-new-jersey-franklin-sterling-hill-picking-table, lapis-1992-02-34-usa-new-jersey-franklin, 2004-collecting-fluorescent-minerals etc etc...), please contact us...
Also see:
http://www.sterlinghill.org/
http://franklin-sterlinghill.com/ and his mineral section!
http://franklinmineralmuseum.com/,
http://www.uvminerals.org/,
http://luminousminerals.com/trotter.shtml,
Mindat.org on this location.
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