Orpiment from Barneys Canyon Salt Lake County, Utah.

Through open-pit mining methods Barneys Canyon Mining Company, which is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, mined the Melco gold deposit from mid-1989 through 2001. Near the end of that time, a small vein containing scattered pockets of drusy crystalline orpiment was discovered. Orpiment of this general character is not new to Nevada's Carlin Trend gold deposits, as spectacular orpiment specimens have come from Newmont Mining Corporation's Twin Creek mine and Placer Dome's Getchell mine, both of which are in Humboldt County. In Utah, however, specimen-quality orpiment is far rarer and is…