Southeast Missouri Lead District

The potential for lead mining in Southeast Missouri was first discovered and documented in 1700 by Father James Gravier. Today, many of the mines and mills of the Old Lead Belt have been abandoned or repurposed. Bonne Terre has large subterranean mines, now used commercially for recreational tourism and scuba diving. The Missouri Mines State Historic Site occupies the retired Federal Mill No. 3 in Park Hills. ==Mineralogy and geology==

The formal geological name for the Lead Belt is the "Southeastern Missouri Mississippi Valley-type Mineral District". It contains the highest concentration of galena (lead(II) sulfide) in the world and most orebodies are concentrated in areas where the Lamotte Sandstone pinches out against Precambrian igneous knobs and ridges. The Upper Cambrian age Bonneterre Formation was deposited in a shallow sea around the Precambrian age St. Francois Mountains, which formed an island archipelago. Ore mineralization most likely occurred during the Permian, when low-temperature hydrothermal metal-rich brines migrated through the Ozarks during the Ouachita orogeny in the Late Paleozoic. In the Old Lead Belt, galena is more fine-grained and disseminated into the host rock, and large, euhedral crystals are rare. Ore is mostly constrained to the lower 60 feet of the Bonneterre Formation, and preferentially follow the lateral sedimentary beds and features. In the Viburnum Trend, zinc and copper are found in higher concentrations, and galena was able to form larger, more euhedral crystals. Ore mineralization in this subdistrict is prominently emplaced along collapse breccias, and not as influenced by lateral sedimentary features as in the Old Lead Belt. Ore in the Viburnum Trend can be found throughout the entire vertical extent of the Bonneterre Formation, but is mostly constrained to the upper 75 feet. File:Galena-104080.jpg|Cubic galena (lead ore) from the Sweetwater Mine of the Viburnum Trend (Reynolds County, Missouri). File:Galena-Sphalerite-Marcasite-46789.jpg|Sphalerite, galena, and marcasite from the Viburnum Trend District (Reynolds County, Missouri). File:Calcite-Chalcopyrite-232886.jpg|Calcite and chalcopyrite specimen from the Brushy Creek Mine of the Viburnum Trend District (Reynolds County, Missouri). ==Production==

The Lead Belt produces about 70% of the US primary supply of lead, and significant amounts of the nation's zinc. In the year 2000, Missouri produced 313,105 tons, with an estimated value of $128,838,880, according to Missouri DNR Data. About 84% of the lead is used for lead–acid batteries, and a secondary smelter in Boss, Missouri recycles lead–acid batteries. Another major consumer of Missouri lead was Winchester Ammunition, located in East Alton, Illinois. From 1720 to its closure in 1959, the Mine La Motte-Fredericktown Subdistrict produced over 325,000 tons of lead. From 1864 to 1972, over 8.5 million tons of lead was produced from the Old Lead Belt Subdistrict. The Viburnum Trend is the only subdistrict still in production, and is primarily mined by The Doe Run Company. From 1960 to 2022, The Doe Run Company has reported that nearly 315 million tons of ore has been extracted from the Viburnum Trend. ==Communities in the Lead Belt==