The Wyoming State Geological Survey has identified the Medicine Bow National Forest as a region with high potential for diamonds and platinum group metals (PGMs).
The forest lies on the edge of the Wyoming Province, a highly fractured cratonic margin with Archean basement in contact with cratonized Proterozoic basement separated by a major suture zone.
Adjacent to the forest are two of the largest kimberlite districts in the U.S. One of these, the State Line district, includes 40 diamondiferous kimberlites, which have yielded samples ranging from 0.5 to 135 carats per 100 tonnes. Several targets in the area remain untested. The second district, Iron Mountain, has produced some significant G10 garnets.
The Medicine Bow Forest is also near the largest lamproite field in North America, the Leucite Hills.
Stream sediment-sampling in the forest has met with some success. Of the more than 1,600 samples collected by the survey, about 20% have yielded kimberlitic indicator minerals.
The national forest also occupies the Wyoming Platinum-Palladium-Nickel Province, which hosts several layered mafic complexes and fragments. Some highly anomalous samples have been collected in the area, and a defunct PGM mine lies along the margin of one of these complexes.
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