Tyrone

Tyrone turquoise was mined outside of Silver City in the southwestern area of New Mexico. As with many turquoise mines, its original purpose was for copper mining.Turquoise is considered a secondary mineral of a copper mine, and because of the money and scale of operation is for the copper, these companies see turquoise as a waste product and it ends up in the tailings. Rarely, some copper companies will allow people to pick turquoise out of these rock “refuse” piles. In the early 1980s, when the Tyrone mine owner, Phelps Dodge, employed a new extraction method of crushing and acid wash, this process destroyed any turquoise within the copper ore. Because of this, Tyrone turquoise has not been mined since then.