Beryllium is produced from Spor Mountain, a super-large volcanic-hosted bertrandite deposit in Utah.

The Spor Mountain district is situated-on the western margin of the Thomas caldera, one of at least three volcanic subsidence structures formed during Oligocene time (Shawe, 1972). These structures lie in an east-west trending belt of igneous rocks and mineral deposits, called the “berylium belt of western Utah" (Cohenour, 1963), or the "Deep Creek- Tintic belt" (Hilpert and Roberts, 1964), which also includes other metal deposits outside the Spor Mountain district.

The western margin of the caldera, marked by a narrow zone of faults and landslide breccias, is located at the east side of Spor Mountain. Beginning in early Miocene time, normal faulting cut both Paleozoic rocks and Tertiary volcanic rocks, producing the fault-block structure and topography typical of basin-and-range systems. All the faults were potential pathways for mineralizing fluids.

Tertiary volcanic rocks of the Spor Mountain Formation consist of two members, the vitric tuff and an overlying porphyritic rhyolite. The tuff formation is dated at 21 million years (Lower Miocene). The two members occur together in most places and are restricted to the vicinity of Spor Mountain. The porphyritic rhyolite member crops out as flows, domes, and small plugs. (Davis 1984).

Deposit Types
Beryllium was discovered in the area in 1959 when a rockhound collected opal nodu ........

There are 7 known ore bodies: Fluro/Roadside, Rainbow, Blue Chalk/West/Section 16, Monitor, South Wind, Camp, and Sigma Emma.

Mining is open pit. Long term models have seven discrete pits that are ultimately to be mined. The mining is carried out with a modified benching scheme in which the benches follow the dip of the deposit and thus may increase in thickness as the mining advances.

Overburden blasting and removal are performed by a contractor. Any topsoil or suitable surficial material are removed and reserved for future reclamation. Rhyolite waste materialis blasted and then moved with truck and shovel, while alluvium and tuff do not need to be blasted and can be removed with scrapers.

After the removal of the initial overburden, secondary driling on 25-foot centers yields a detailed grade control model that is then used in the mining process. This vertical drilling extends down through the ore body and into the underlying footwall, waste material beneath it and is used for creating a detailed interpretation of the ore body to be used as a grade control model for subsequent mining. Materion performs the secondary stripping, which may be done with dozers, excavators or scrapers. Ore is mined by Materion crews using the same equipment and grade control continues to be monitored with a field Berylometer. All ore material is spread into stockpiles. Stockpiles are intentionally constructed with ore spread in thin, intermingling layers. These ........

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