Glowing Underground in Yuma

A few miles outside of Yuma is a treasure underneath. The Castle Dome Mine Museum gives you a glimpse of the life from the early settlers to the lives behind the war. The owner, Allen Armstrong, has discovered items left behind in the mine for the last twenty years. “There’s a lot of stuff that they would leave behind, like tools, drill steels, notes, the things that would be missing in history you could find down here, ” said Armstrong. “You can find an understanding on how they lived.”

But in January 2016, a UV light uncovered something that was there the whole time. A fluorescent mineral wall shining off a rainbow of colors.

“You can see huge potential,” said Armstrong. “Certain minerals will reflect under UV light and will fluorescent. The electrons will absorb the energy and throwback color like a battery basically.”

It’s the thought of being in the same hull mine as workers did in the past, but catching something they didn’t see. Armstrong points out that each mineral gives off a different color under the UV light and will glow in the dark.

“Fluoride would be blue, willemite would be green, calcite would be red, green, pink, and orange and when you get the combination of them the colors kind of merge,” said Armstrong. “A lot of times you’ll see a wall with a massive one color cause it’s all one mineral but here, it’s all cluster.” It’s the glowing underground you wouldn’t imagine in Yuma, making the desert more mysterious than ever. The Castle Dome Mine Museum and the Hull Mine have met standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Admission and have fulfilled the requirements of the American Mine Safety Association. For information on the Castle Dome Mine Museum and details on how to schedule a tour, click here.