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Arizona Oddities

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Home›Natural Surroundings›Pick Mining for Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation

Pick Mining for Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation

By Sam Lowe
March 17, 2014
6045
4

PERIDOT — Several roads lead to the world’s largest deposit of peridot but less than half of them actually lead to the mine itself. They do, however, lead to roads that might lead to the mine. But once there, there’s no actual mine because mining peridot is not a high-tech extraction process. Instead, the site is a gorge in the flatlands of the San Carlos Apache Reservation, and the miners are Apaches equipped with hammers, crowbars and coffee cans.

peridotPeridot is a green, transparent, semiprecious stone that was once popular among Egyptian royalty. It still commands respect as one of the two August birthstones, and the only other places it’s found are in Egypt, Hawaii and New Mexico.  The mining process here is basic hardscrabble — a bulldozer opens up the land and the miners dig by hand to find the green treasures, used primarily in jewelry. On a good day, they may fill their coffee cans to the halfway mark and make up to $100.

Those seeking that kind of wealth should be aware, however, that the mining area is off-limits to non-residents, who can face heavy fines if they’re caught claim jumping. The small village of Peridot is 17 miles east of Globe on US Highway 70.

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Tagsindian reservationmining

4 comments

  1. Amy 4 April, 2015 at 03:56 Reply

    Would love & appreciate any info on mining for the public.
    Any stones,Peridot,Opal,etc. I’m 50 & want just to look for rocks,not even mine them just collect specimens. I’m too old to go breaking the law
    I’d love to try mining but ANY INFO about LEGAL places for hobbiests to go would be absolutely wonderful.

    God bless you,
    Amy L.

  2. austin 5 September, 2016 at 15:38 Reply

    Are there any places around the mine that is free to the public?

  3. James J Noa 13 May, 2018 at 19:17 Reply

    Can the public mine on the Apache reservation for peridot San Carlos

    • Terri 21 March, 2019 at 14:42 Reply

      as the article says…NO.

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