Finding Turquoise

How do people find Turquoise in the desert?

Many years ago the Spaniards came up from the south in search of gold. They brought trade items with them and they knew what the native peoples liked. They also brough samples of gold to show the natives what they would trade for. The natives would go out and search for gold to trade and they ran across many other things that they admired and brought back to their camp - Turquoise was one of them. The Native American Indians were the first to discover Turquoise in North America.

A prospector is a person that sets out and walks the land, he walks with his head down looking for minerals or outcroppings of minerals on the ground. Often mineral formations are in the hill country and due to erosion they are easy to spot. Once you see an outcropping of color, you simple dig down and find where the mineral came from.

Prospecting for Turquoise is the same, you go to an area where Turquoise is known to be found such as Nevada or Arizona. You then start covering ground looking for blue coloration. Today, we have four wheelers which allows us to cover a lot of ground so it is much easier to find Turquoise today than it was in the past.

Good places to look for Turquoise deposits are between Tonopah and Hawthorne Nevada to the east of hwy 95 near Tonopah and then to the west of hwy 95 near Mina, Nevada. There you will find a lot of Varisisite and green Turquoise. For Blue Turquoise, look in the hill around Merenci and Globe Arizona.