AMERICAN COLORED GEMSTONE MINING Owned and Operated by Members of the American GemTrade Association
Avant Mining, LLC: Jessieville, Arkansas Avant Mining, LLC has been mining the Zigras Mine in Blue Springs, Arkansas, since 2014.Avant owns 30+ Quartz mines covering over 11,400 acres in Arkansas.The Zigras Mine, formerly known as the Diamond Drill Carbon Company No. 4 Mine, was the leading producer of optical Quartz during WorldWar II. It was used as “oscillator Quartz” which was critical to the war effort.The Zigras Mine continues to be the leading U.S. producer of optical Quartz and muse- um-quality specimens. Most of the optical
Quartz comes from the same vein that was mined inWorldWar II.The mu- seum-quality specimens are coming from an area called “theVortex Pock- et.”This pocket has been producing from an area nearly 100 feet in length. It has produced well over 50 tons of specimens and is likely the largest pocket of high-quality colorless Quartz ever documented.
Top: Raquel Alonzo Perez, Curator of theMineralogical and Geological Museum, Harvard University, admires a museum-quality Zigras MineQuartz cluster. Photo courtesy of Avant Mining. Bottom: An example of the large single crystals found by Avant Mining . Photo courtesy of David Baker.
Additionally,Avant Mining, LLC owns and operates the Mona Lisa Turquoise Mine located on the Porter Mountain ridge in Arkansas.The Mona Lisa Mine produced the largest Turquoise nugget ever found in the United States, tipping the scales at 245 lb.After many years of inactivity, Mona Lisa Mine has reopened producing an interesting array of Turquoise.
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