Jon Burgoyne

The Turquoise Mining Process

This article goes in depth into the entire process of turquoise mining, from the prospecting to the final product.

Turquoise is a beautiful gem that has been worn for thousands of years across the globe. Whether in an Aztec King’s crown, inlaid into a sword hilt carried into battle by a Persian warrior, or worn on the wrist as a ladies cuff bracelet, the turquoise has to come from somewhere. Here we will discuss the process of mining turquoise from start to finish.

 Mining begins with the prospecting step. Just like they did a hundred years ago, some lucky fellow needs to walk the ground. Everything from formation of mountains to color and surroundings tell a prospector where to start the hunt. Sometimes it takes thousands of hours to locate a good site.

Once found, the miner then stakes the claim. The claim owner owns only the rights to the minerals on the portion of land. Each claim is 1500' long and 600' wide. The miner will fill out the claim notice stating location and direction of claim and place the notice where it can be easily seen by others. Then it’s off to the county courthouse to research plat maps and file paperwork. Once filed there, it’s off to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to file the same paperwork with them. Once approved, you now own the rights to the minerals on that claim! 

But long before you plan to dig there, you need to do your bond work with the BLM. This is money set aside by the miner in agreement with the BLM office to reclaim the mine once the miner is done with the approved work. If the miner skips town before reclaiming the mine to its natural state, the BLM will deplete these funds to hire a contractor to do the job. This can range from around $1000 to well into the millions on larger mine projects.

After the paperwork comes the physical work. Shovels, picks, cobbing hammers and fingernails are worn out routinely extracting stone from the host rock. We drill holes first for the dynamite and prill. We load the holes and blast the host rock to loosen it up. Using backhoes or excavators, we dig out the host rock containing turquoise and run it over a screen to seperate the dirt and dust from the rock. The rock all goes into a cement mixer to begin the tumbling process. Depending on the mine, this can take minutes or hours to remove the coating on the turquoise so the stone can be seen. After being tumbled, we wash the rock and begin sifting through the washed rock removing all the visible turquoise. Then it’s off to the cutting shop with the stone to start preparing it for beautiful hand crafted jewelry like silver and turquoise pendants or a women’s cuff bracelet.

Article Tags: Host Rock

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