Located next to the southern Arizona town of Sierra Vista, the Huachuca Mountains are a prime location for fluorescent minerals. 

Miller Canyon Pictures and Collecting Reports

Minerals and Assemblages of Miller Canyon

Collecting Report, September 2007

My wife Barbara had a conference at the Biosphere facility north of Tucson so I took the opportunity to do a short collecting trip that evening.  We drove out of Flagstaff in the morning, I dropped her off at the Biosphere in the afternoon, then I went and collected rocks all night.  My haul wasn't quite as spectacular as the previous trip, less Sphalerite for one thing, but there are plenty of nice pieces. 

This time I didn't happen upon any smugglers but found a lot of other mountain creatures.  A weather front was going through that evening and strong winds whipped up the canyon.  Perhaps it was the change in atmospheric pressure but there were more animals active than I had ever seen there before.  In the abandoned mine tunnel (shown in the Miller Canyon Pictures page) there were two bats hanging around.  That time of night they would usually be flying in search of insects but perhaps the winds were suppressing their activities.  At one spot I heard a group of three owls calling back and forth to each other.  Not far from there I caught a glimpse of something walking around.  It was hard to see but I could tell that it had a long tail with black bands.  My first thought was that it might be a ringtail but I finally concluded that it was a coatimundi.  Rarely seen, these only occur in the United States along the border with Mexico.  Lastly, I was lucky to spot a large blacktail rattlesnake crossing the path, lucky I didn't step on him, that is.  It was a magnificent specimen and calmly went on his way across the path while I waited a safe distance back.  Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me but below is a picture of another blacktail that I found in the Huachucas previously.  In the picture you can clearly see how the blacktail it got its name.

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On a trip to Tucson a couple of years ago I took the night off and went down to the Huachuca Mountains to hopefully do some collecting.  Unfortunately the Huachucas were completely covered with snow and so I was stuck with little to do, and sub-freezing temperatures besides.  So I decided to head to the south side of the mountain range that, perchance, I might find some areas where the sunlight had melted the blanket of snow.  I hiked up and down the foothills, froze, got burs in my socks, and so forth, but it was all worth it when I stumbled upon an outcrop of Aragonite.  I was delighted to find a small number of brightly-fluorescent pieces.  I, as well as others, have found similar material in the Santa Rita Mountains, further northwest, but not nearly as fluorescent as the lot that I found this time in the Huachucas.  These glow a medium cream to bright yellow/orange color under all wavelengths of UV light.  They also show a phosphorescence that is not yellow at all but bluish-white.  

The State of Texas Mine is Zinc mine similar to the prospect in Miller Canyon.  Although the fluorescence there is generally not as spectacular, there are still some interesting combinations.  Unfortunately the area is entirely closed to collecting and so these pieces are a rarity, particularly the larger ones.

Copper Canyon Scheelite was one of those magical discoveries.  One evening I spent many hours searching the various mines in the canyon only to come up with a handful of pieces.  Then out of dumb luck I found an outcrop of Scheelite in the stream bed not associated with any of the mines.  The variegated patterns are some of most attractive I've seen and a limited number of pieces also feature orange Calcite.