Pyromorphite - Bunker Hill Mine, Kellogg, Idaho
Contributed by: FMS Admin
Date: May 7th, 2026
Locality: Bunker Hill Mine, Wardner, Shoshone County, Idaho, USA (See on Mindat)
Description:
This little specimen set off a fire storm last summer, and the current pyromorphite craze on eBay has its origins with this little guy.
I had read that pyromorphites sometime fluoresced, so we gambled on a small, natural light piece on an online auction. We won! Yeah! But when it arrived, nada. No glow in shortwave or longwave. Bummer.
A few weeks (or months) later, on a whim, we hit it with midwave and it exploded in color. We were stunned. Who knew there was a mineral that pretty much only fluoresced in midwave? Certainly not the experts! Leave it to the ignorant novices to do a little research and hope for the unexpected.
As mentioned, this is a thumbnail piece.
Originally posted by Fire Viper on Nature's Rainbows in 2018.
Summary of luminescence responses:
Pyromorphite (Mindat) (RRUFF)
- Fluorescence under Midwave (305nm Lamp/Mercury) UV light: Orange