The Geology of Morefield Pegmatite

The Morefield mine is part of the Morefield-Denaro area, in contrast with the Rutherford Mine about 4 miles away, which is in the Jefferson-Amelia area (Lemke, Jahns and Griffitts, p. 104-107). It is about 300 feet above sea level, sloping toward the Appomattox River (Glass 1935), or as it is listed with the US Geological Survey (Sapakoff 1995), about 295.276 feet (90 meters).

Per the US Geological Survey (Sapakoff 1995), the Morefield mine’s deposit identification number is 10300841, its MAS/MILS ID is 0510070002 and its site name is “Morefield mine.” Its geographic coordinates are -77.91391, 37.36006 (WGS84).

Brown (1962) characterized the Morefield mine as the “most interesting and important of the 18 or so pegmatites which have been prospected or worked in the Morefield-Denaro sub-area” (p. 62). The overriding pegmatite characteristics in this area feature a starting point that is slightly north of east, are arranged as en echelon veins, run in a discordant manner with respect to the folding of nearby rock formations, and are similar in areal pattern (a distribution of rocks in a large area of earth) (p. 63).

Holistically, the US Geological Survey (Sapakoff 1995) characterized the area as igneous Porphyroblastic Garnet-Biotite Gneiss. (This is a slight adjustment from 1985, when the Virginia Division of Mineral Resources had characterized it as “dark-gray biotite hornblend gneiss” (Sweet and Penick, 1986, p. 15). The Morefield mine is also intruded by diabase, a common type of igneous rock that bisects the pegmatite in the form of dikes (Glass, 1935, p. 744).

This geology led to the existence of over 70 mines, the vast majority of which are defunct. Interestingly, the Herbb #2 mine, about 20 miles north in Powhatan, is noted as having been “strikingly similar to the Morefield and Rutherford pegmatites in Amelia County” (Lemke, 1952, p. 178).

The Physical Workings of Morefield mine

The open cut mine in November 1931 was 3 to 5 feet deep and ran for several hundred feet along the pegmatite dike. A shaft had recently been sunk to 50 feet deep (Pegau, p. 60).

As of 1953, the mine was an open cut, 250 feet long, 12-30 feet wide, and 5-30 feet deep. It also featured a “115-foot shaft, 130 feet of drifts, a 60-foot raise, and a small stope.” A pond 500 feet from the workings provided fresh water for the mine. Additionally, as of 1953, water flowed into the mine at about 12 gallons per minute (Geehan, 1953, p. 2).

The mine was comprised of 5 zones as of 1953: a contact zone comprised of quartz and feldspar, a rare minerals zone, a central with a large volume of quartz, a second rare minerals zone, and a second quartz-feldspar zone (Geehan, 1953, p. 3).

When the overburden is removed from a zone, or when material is removed to generate a shaft or drifts, those materials are discarded in mounds called “dumps.” Here is a 1932 photo of the dumps:

Figure 15 ASSESSING COPYRIGHT STATUS. The dumps at Morefield mine in 1932 Source: Pegau

Figure 16 RESEARCH PERM Morefield Shaft (c) Bill Baltzley 1992 (2)

Figure 17 RESEARCH PERM Morefield Shaft Bill Baltzley c1992 (3)

Figure 18 Morefield shaft (c) 2004 Betsy Martin. Used with permission.

Figure 19 MM new shaft collar MM (1); (c) 2007 Betsy Martin. Used with permission.

Figure 20 MM new shaft collar (2); (c) 2007 Betsy Martin. Used with permission.

Production at Morefield mine

Per the US Geological Survey (Sapakoff 1995), the Morefield mine’s deposit identification number is 10300841, its MAS/MILS ID is 0510070002 and its site name is “Morefield mine.”

As seen in the chart below, the arrival of Sam Dunaway at Morefield mine brought a steep spike in total hours of production time, along with an exponential rise in tonnage volumes. As can be seen in the chart below, Dunaway does business as “Morefield Gem Mine, Inc.”

1986 – 2016 Comparison of Annually Reported Tonnage (DMM Report 2016)

Type: UG; County, Amelia. Note: This year range does not include Morefield #2.

Photo ©️2017 Karen Smith-Will

Bibliography

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