The Zigras Mine
Today in Holes and Pits: Artisanal mining for millennial gemstone punk tycoons. The Zigras mine is one of a number of quartz claims owned and operated by Avant Mining in Blue Springs, Arkansas. Avant, a startup company formed in 2010, controls about 11,400 acres in Arkansas and advertises itself as the largest crystal mining operation in the world. This region (a belt of quartz-rich veins from Arkansas to Oklahoma) is historically known for quartz specimens that are exceptional in size and clarity. The specimens in the Ouachita Mountains formed about 280 to 245 million years ago, when voids within the mountains created a stable environment for crystal formation. Quartz forms when hot, highly pressurized silica-rich solutions essentially impregnate underground cavities with silicon dioxide (SiO2) deposits; the clearer the crystal, the more stable and unimpeded its history of growth. According to the owners, the Zigras Mine, one of the more exclusive areas operated by Avant, has produced some of the clearest and most sizable crystals, including a 1,500-pound behemoth called Holy Grail.
The state’s ‘crystal belt’ has been mined by residents for hundreds of years, from the pre-colonial period into the mid 20th century, when free-for-all digs were common on federally controlled lands. In WWII, when quartz deposits became critical to the production of communications equipment, like oscillators, in wartime, the federal government established a quartz-buying station in Hot Springs and consumption of Arkansas quartz was more carefully tracked. By the 1950s, after General Electric created synthetic quartz, military demand for mined quartz reduced. However, other sources of demand — museums, tourists, and the growing semi-precious gemstone industry — remain active today, apparently in sufficient quantities to merit commercial mining operations.
The relatively young founder of Avant mining, Jim Zigras, is kind of a ‘gem influencer,’ who has cultivated a reputable if somewhat eclectic persona as a bon vivant mineralogist on social media. He’s been photographed at Art Basel, is the supplier of David Yurman (the jewelry maker) and has been known to source odd or unusual stones for famous friends. Mark Motherbaugh (composer and former member of the band Devo) procured a large ruby from Zigras, which he lovingly fashioned into a turd — a kind of inside joke between the two about collector decadence and hubris. Zigras is a busy promoter and collector, with pieces on auction at Sothebys, on display in the natural history wing of the Smithsonian, and installed in several art/geology crossed exhibits at museums such as the (aptly named) Crystal Bridges in the company’s home state of Arkansas.
If Zigras is to the Arkansas crystal industry what Jose Mugrabis was to Andy Warhol’s pop art — a committed patron with a specific vision and an uncanny sense of the collective zeitgeist — then his timing is impeccable. As the Guardian reports, in 2017 crystals became a multibillion-dollar slice of the $4.2trn global wellness industry. Between the yoga retreats and diet planners, there is undeniably a market segment that capitalizes on the presumed healing and energy powers of natural materials, such as crystals. Perhaps the most infamous product in this line is the Yoni egg, sold by Gwenth Paltrow’s company Goop, which promises improved vaginial performance. This is just one example of a popular product that lacks specific scientific or trial-based proof for its claims, yet appears to have a strong appeal that is both ritual and aesthetic. At their worst, such products offer a snake-oil salesman’s assurance, promising outcomes that can’t be tracked or verified, and capitalizing on the naivety of consumers and on the murky intersection of spirituality and the placebo effect. A skit by the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb called Homeopathic Hospital captures the inanity of holistic medicine by depicting a medical team attempting to save a car accident victim in critical condition with various forms of woo-woo: “The chakras are fading” Mitchell announces, waving his hands over an ER patient’s body. “We’re going to need some crystals!”
Th woo-woo component of the rising crystal market is undeniable; however, the appeal of semi-precious stones as art objects for their own sake may also be a large driver. When understood as objects of contemplation, appealing first for their beauty and curiosity, the trend of popularity is more relatable. Beautiful things have a way of inducing people to create stories around them, to justify their reason for being. American society in particular, which is heavily focused on utility and practicality, leaves little room for the consumption of things solely on the basis of pleasure, which is seen as indulgent or decadent. It seems entirely possible that the proposed health properties of crystals may in some cases be an excuse for purchase, rather than the sole reason. As with tarot and astrology, so with holistic medicine: it is difficult to separate the true believers from those for whom the story is appealing and fun, but ultimately not gospel.
To Avant’s credit, little to no marketing from the company (that I’ve come across so far) appears to lean on the presumed magical healing properties of quartz. Avant employees and customers appear largely to be geology nerds, who enjoy collecting and categorizing stones the way some people enjoy collecting vinyl. Like many other small near-precious gemstone companies, which are often family operated, Avant is a kind of artisanal operation. Per a government business grant report from 2020, the company has only 9 full time employees, and promotes itself as a self-digging operation; at Avant’s mines, visitors mine their own crystals, aided by a guide from the company. (As a point of contrast, its worth pointing out that many of the crystals that make it to the major Tucson gemstone show in New Mexico are mined in places like Mauritania, where the conditions are terrible for workers and the pay is low.)
It seems that Avant is selling crystal tourism as much as it is selling the crystals themselves. Avant’s social media pages heavily document the latest and greatest finds: videos show miners at the moment of discovery, a gloved hand exhuming a large specimen from the red clay as a growing crowd chitters in excitement. This is of course intentional advertising — Zigras has an eye for spectacle and the instagramable, and this is no doubt a strategic branding effort. Regardless of the level of artifice, the clips are appealing, and give me the same satisfying feeling that unboxing videos on YouTube do. Staged or not, they capture the appeal of the reveal and the enthusiastic spirit of amateur miners, who seem driven by a combination of curiosity, camaraderie, and good old treasure hunting. I find myself wondering — is it possible to have a parasocial relationship with a mining company?
Beyond the appeal of discovery and the supposedly pseudo-spiritual properties of the thing, there is a separate aesthetic appeal in crystals related to a sense of embedded time. We read time in things both of our own making, and those made out of the incidental processes of minerals and water moving around the earth (and there’s no vintage time quite like geological time).
Sparkly gems are beautiful to us partly because they articulate the level of organizational complexity in our world, even among non-living things. Few of us are immune; as a kid, I remember my dad (a shadowbox, flea market, and overall trinket enthusiast) bringing home a small amethyst geode. It was the length of a hand and a half, with brittle gray rock on the outside curve, and perfectly formed pyramids of clear royal-purple crystal on the inside. I would often take it down from the shelf, the mass surprisingly heavy in my small hands, and polish the dust from its pointy facets, the perfectness of its geometry a small but constant source of wonder. Thus, I can see why people anthropomorphize crystals; they are pretty pet rocks, but for adults, that bespeak deep time. The Arkansas based journalist Leslie Peacock perhaps put it best: when she visited the combination gem and art show featuring some of the Zigras Mine’s specimens at Crystal Bridges, she said the experience unleashed a “heretofore-buried lust for these geometric objects of nature”.
