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Muscovite in the Spruce Pine District, North Carolina
From Abstract: "This report describes the occurrence of the mica and its physical properties among which is an unusually wide range of colors. A table is presented showing the results of power-factor measurements made by the National Bureau of Standards on 196 samples of sheet mica from 109 mica mines and 15 feldspar mines.It is concluded that more systematic planning of mica mining, for the district as a whole. would result in an average yearly production of at least 90,000 pounds of relatively clear sheet and possibly much more."
Manganese Deposits of Cedar Creek Valley, Frederick and Shenandoah Counties, Virginia
From abstract: The Cedar Creek manganese mining district is in the southwestern part of Frederick County and the northwestern part of Shenandoah County, Virginia. The manganese ore consists chiefly of the oxides pyrolusite and psilomelane, and forms replacement pockets and fracture fillings in the Oriskany sandstone and in residual sandy clay and chert derived from the New Scotland limestone. Both these formations are of Devonian age, and both form low ridges. The minable bodies have been deposited by ground water in the zone of weathering, and most of them lie above present ground-water level. The manganese-bearing formations, together with the older and younger formations exposed in Cedar Creek Valley, have been compressed into numerous folds, and at the southwestern end of the district one of these folds passes into a normal fault with a displacement of 1,000 feet or more.
Tungsten Deposits of the Nightingale District, Pershing County, Nevada
Abstract: The tungsten deposits of the Nightingale district are just within the western border of Pershing County, Nev., and in the Nightingale or Truckee Range, which lies east of Winnemucca Lake. The Tertiary volcanic rocks of the district rest unconformably upon intrusive granodiorite and steeply dipping metamorphosed limestones and slates of unknown age. The tungsten deposits are of the contact-metamorphic type: The ore consists of scheelite bearing tactite, a dark silicate rock that was formed by metamorphism of limestone at the granodiorite contact. Scheelite (calcium tungstate) is the only valuable mineral. The gangue minerals are epidote, quartz, pyroxene, garnet, calcite, tremolite, molybdenite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, apatite, and sphene. The bodies of tactite are generally tabular, and they extend downward steeply, because both the limestones and the granodiorite contact dip vertically or nearly so. The largest tactite body of the district is at the Nightingale mine; it attains a maximum thickness of 60 feet and is nearly a thousand feet long, but only for part of its length is it thick enough and rich enough to be potentially minable. That it continues downward below the mine workings, which extend to a depth of 128 feet, is shown by nine drill holes put down by the Bureau of Mines, United States Department of the Interior, in 1940, all of which encountered tactite at depths of, 260 to 350 feet. The mine has produced about 12,000 tons of ore, and its ore bodies contain the principal reserve of the district. In 1938 the reserves of the entire district were estimated to be about 50,000 tons of ore averaging between 0.25 and 0.50 percent of W03. Later diamond drilling by the Bureau of Mines indicated that the principal tactite body continues to at least twice the depth hitherto explored by the mine workings.
Topaz Deposits Near the Brewer Mine, Chesterfield County, South Carolina
From introduction: Lode and placer deposits of massive topaz rock were discovered near the old Brewer gold mine in northwestern Chesterfield County, S. C., in 1935. Preliminary tests have shown that this rock can be used in the manufacture of refractory ware and as a source of mullite, thus augmenting supplies of kyanite that have been coming from India.
Chromite and quicksilver deposits of the Del Puerto area, Stanislaus County, California
From Introduction: "The present report is based on 10 weeks of field work from mid-November 1940 until late January 1941, and 4 days in May 1941. An area of 5 1/2 square miles in and about Del Puerto Canyon was mapped on a scale of 600 feet to 1 inch, and two small areas in the vicinity of the Adobe Canyon and Black Bart chromite mines were mapped on a scale of 200 feet to 1 inch."
Nickel Deposits of Bohemia Basin and Vicinity, Yakobi Island, Alaska
From Introduction: "According to present knowledge, the deposits center principally, in three areas: Bonemia Basin on Yakobi Island, Mirror Harbor on Chicagof Island, and Snipe Bay on Baranof Island. This report deals only with the deposits of the most northerly area, in and near Bohemia Basin."
Nickel-gold deposit near Mount Vernon, Skagit County, Washington
From Introduction: "The Mount Vernon nickel-gold deposit is 4 1/2 miles southeast of the city of Mount Vernon, Skagit County, Wash. The writers believe that the nickel was originally present in the serpentinized peridotite and that it was dissolved and redistributed by ascending hydrothermal gold-bearing solutions while the serpentine was being altered into the silica-carbonate rock."
Nickel Deposit Near Riddle, Douglas County, Oregon
From Introduction: "The Riddle nickel deposit is on Nickel Mountain, also called Piney Mountain, about 5 miles northwest of Riddle, Douglas Country, Oreg. (fig. 20). The deposit is an unevenly distributed surficial blanket, containing the nickel silicate garnierite, which rests upon peridotitic rocks on the western, southern, and southeastern slopes of the mountain above an elevation of 2,000 feet. It is on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and it is about 230 miles by highway south of Portland. A poorly conditioned dirt road about 5 miles long connects the town with the nickel deposit."
Quicksilver Deposits in the Steens and Pueblo Mountains, Southern Oregon
From Scope of Report: "During the summer of 1940, 34 days were spent in a preliminary study of the quicksilver deposits in the Steens and Pueblo Mountains. Nearly all of the quicksilver prospects were examined and mapped, and the general geology of the east flank of the mountains from north of Andrews to Denio was reconnoitered."
Chromite deposits of Kenai Peninsula, Alaska
This report describes field work and research done in two areas of ultramafic rocks containing chromite deposits are known at the south end of Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. The Red Mountain is the other area covered in this report.
Tungsten Deposits in the Sierra Nevada Near Bishop, California: A Preliminary Report
From abstract: Scheelite ore bodies occur at widely separated localities in the Sierra Nevada near Bishop, Calif. The scheelite is found in altered sedimentary rocks at or near the contact between granitic rocks and limestones that are partly changed to silicate rocks composed largely of garnet. Mineralization was closely connected with the intrusion of the granite, the latest of the varied intrusives that make up the rocks of the Sierra Nevada.
Tin and Tungsten Deposits at Silver Hill, Spokane County, Washington
From abstract: Tin and tungsten minerals occur in pegmatites and quartz veins at Silver Hill, in secs. 23 and 24, T. 24 N., R. 43 E., 11 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash.
Manganese Deposits in the Paymaster Mining District, Imperial County, California
Abstract: The manganese deposits of the Paymaster district, in Imperial County, Calif., extend along steeply inclined normal fault fissures which cut Tertiary (?) volcanic breccia and fanglomerate. The ore deposits are in part open-space fillings composed largely of psilomelane, and in part fault breccia replaced by psilomelane, pyrolusite, and manganite. Calcite and rock fragments are the chief impurities. High-grade ore now exposed averages about 40 percent manganese, and contains much barium. About 3,000 tons of ore averaging 42 percent manganese was produced from the district by hand-sorting in 1917-18. It is estimated that nearly the same amount could be produced again, largely from present workings. In addition, a few tens of thousands of tons of milling ore, estimated to contain between 10 and 30 percent of manganese, are believed to exist in veins one to three feet wide within one or two hundred feet of the surface.
Nickel Deposit Near Gold Hill, Boulder County, Colorado
From Introduction: "Scattered throughout the Colorado Front Range, there are many small copper deposits, believed to be of pre-Cambrian age. The have been widely prospected but have produced little or no ore. In one of these, the Copper King mine, near Gold Hill, Colo., nickel was discovered in 1930, and development in the following years has exposed some 25,000 tons of ore containing from 2 to 3 percent of nickel. No other nickel deposit is known in the Front Range, but a somewhat similar deposit has been opened in Gem mine, near Canon City and about 120 miles south of Gold Hill."
Quicksilver and Antimony Deposits of the Stayton District, California
This report discusses geologic work conducted in the Strayton district, California on the deposits of quicksilver and antimony.
Manganese Deposits in the Nevada District, White Pine County, Nevada
Report describing the characteristics of manganese deposits found in White Pine County, Nevada, and geographic information about the surrounding area.
Tungsten Resources of the Blue Wing District, Lemhi County Idaho
From abstract: The Blue Wing district, Lemhi County, Idaho, is not only the principal tungsten mining district in the State but it has recently become one of the leading producers of tungsten in the United States. So far only one mine in the district is productive, but other prospects are being actively developed.
The Wild Horse Quicksilver District Lander County, Nevada
Abstract: The presence of cinnabar in the Wild Horse district, in western Lander County, Nev., has been known since about 1916, but little ore was produced until 1940. In that year and early in 1941, deposits discovered in 1939 were mined to apparent exhaustion by the Wild Horse Quicksilver Mining Co., which had produced 827 flasks at the end of April 1941. The district is underlain by moderately deformed sandstone, shale, and limestone of Lower and Middle Triassic age, locally covered by remnants of a mantle of Tertiary fanglomerate, tuff, and lava. The Triassic rocks are partly silicified, and cinnabar has been found in and near silicified rock, particularly the silicified limestone at the base of -the Middle Triassic. The ore bodies so far discovered were individually small and ill-defined, and had an average tenor of less than 0.5 percent of quicksilver. Other similar ore bodies are to be expected at moderate depths, but the cost of exploration for them may, perhaps, prove excessive.
Manganese Resources of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington: a Preliminary Report
Abstract: The northern, eastern, and southern parts of the Olympic Peninsula, Wash., contain many small deposits of manganese. Most of the deposits consist of complex manganese silicates with some carbonates, although 16,275 tons of hausmannite (Mn304) ore was mined at the Crescent mine during 1924-26. About a hundred tons of silicates have been mined from various properties, mainly for experimental purposes. Future production probably will not be large, because the silicate ores are of low grade and are difficult and expensive to treat. Moreover, most of the deposits are difficult of access, and most of the ore bodies are small isolated lenses and thin tabular bodies. The deposits are mostly in red limestone or red argillite near contacts with basalt, but a few of them are in basalt.
Quicksilver Deposits of the Opalite District, Malheur County, Oregon and Humboldt County, Nevada
From Introduction: "The Opalite quicksilver district includes two deposits with a considerable past production, one deposit with a small production, and one unproved prospect. These deposits are located along the circumference of a semicircular area that extends from a short distance west of McDermitt, Nev., for about 20 miles along the Oregon-Nevada State boundary. (See fig. 34). The area thus includes parts of Humboldt County, Nev., and Malheur County, Oreg.; almost the entire production has been derived from the portion in Oregon."
Tin Deposit at Majuba Hill Pershing County, Nevada
Abstract: The tin and copper deposits at Majuba Hill, Pershing County, Nevada are in a partly brecciated plug of Tertiary rhyolite porphyry, which is altered nearly everywhere to quartz and sericite and in some places is intensely tourmalinized. The tin mineral, cassiterite, appears to be associated with the alteration, for the single concentration of it was formed by replacement of altered breccia. Brecciated and altered rock is, however, only a general guide to potentially tin-bearing ground, and not a specific guide to ore shoots, for most of such rock appears to contain only small amounts of cassiterite, widely and unevenly distributed. The known deposit, which is exposed only underground, is at most 20 by 20 by 10 feet in size, and may contain about 12,000 pounds of metallic tin. The deposit is cut off by a normal fault, which apparently is of small displacement, and the footwall segment has not been found. The copper deposit is in the same normal fault, about 300 feet south of the earlier-formed tin deposit. From it about 4,000 tons of 12 percent copper ore was mined in 1915-18, but none has been mined since and no copper ore is now in sight.
Quicksilver Deposits of the Parkfield District, California
From abstract: The Parkfield district, one of the minor California quicksilver districts, lies on the southern end of the Diablo Range, in the southeastern part of Monterey County and the westernmost tip of Kings County. (...) Two geologically similar areas, separated by 10 miles of unmineralized rocks, have been mapped. These areas contain (1) sedimentary, volcanic, and metamorphic rocks belonging to the Franciscan formation, of probable Jurassic age, (2) sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous age, (3) a few outcrops of fossiliferous strata assigned to the Temblor formation, of middle Miocene age, (4) large masses of serpentine emplaced along fault zones in post-Miocene time, (5) lenses of silica-carbonate rock formed by the alteration of the serpentine, and (6) large areas of landslide.
Chromite Deposits of Red Bluff Bay and Vicinity, Baranof Island, Alaska
From introduction: The Red Bluff Bay area was examined briefly for the Geological Survey by John C. Reed and others in 1939. During the summer of 1941 the writers, with R. E. L. Rutledge, mapped this area on a scale of 1:12,000, and examined the serpentine masses in the interior during the course of reconnaissance trips into the surrounding region.
Quicksilver Deposits Near the Little Missouri River, Pike County, Arkansas
From introduction: In this study the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines, United States Department of the Interior, cooperated. The author prepared detailed geologic maps showing the surface topography, geology, and workings of 11 mines, and the underground workings and geology of 7 of these; the Bureau of Mines engineers directed diamond-drilling and.bulldozer-trenching. The locations of the detailed maps are shown on plate 23, an index map overprinted on a segment of the map made by Reed and Wells.
Tin Deposits of Northern Lander County, Nevada
From abstract: Tin-bearing veinlets are exposed in a small area near Izenhood Ranch, 22 miles north of Battle Mountain, Nev. They occur in thick rhyolitic flows of Miocene (?) age, and wood tin, found in the gravels of arroyos that head in the surrounding rhyolite, presumably comes from -other veinlets not yet discovered. The exposed veinlets are about 20 feet in maximum length and a quarter of an inch in average thickness. Parallel and reticulating veinlets form lodes 4 to 6 feet thick and 15 or 20 feet long. Virtually no cassiterite is disseminated in the wall rock.
Some Quicksilver Prospects in Adjacent Parts of Nevada, California, and Oregon
Abstract: This report summarizes the results of reconnaissance study of quicksilver deposits in the northwestern corner of Nevada, the northeastern corner of California, and Lake County, Oreg. made in August 1940. The Lene Pine district, Nevada, the Silvertown and Red Hawk properties in California, and the Currier and Glass Butte properties in Oregon were included. The first two of these require further development before a definite opinion as to their value can be formed. The Red Hawk mine has yielded high-grade ore, but the ore bodies so far worked are very small and scattered. The small amount of development at the recently opened Currier mine has yielded encouraging results. The deposits in the Glass Buttes are large but of such low grade that thorough sampling would be needed to determine their value. In general the region appears to warrant more attention from quicksilver prospectors than it has yet received.
Mica-Bearing Pegmatites of New Hampshire: a Preliminary Report
From abstract: Mica has been mined in New Hampshire since 1803. Production from 1908 through 1939 has aggregated 13,326,990 pounds of sheet and punch mica, an annual average of 416,470 pounds. Since 1931 production has been below this average, because of economic conditions rather than depletions. The mica-bearing pegmatites of the Grafton and Keene districts occur mostly in sillimanite-mica schist adjacent to large areas of biotite gneiss. The pegmatite bodies range from a fraction of an inch to more than 200 feet in thickness; most of them are crosscutting, and about 75 percent strike northeast. Mica occurs sporadically in most of them but where present in commercial quantities it is localized in one or more of the following zones: (1) In quartz-plagioclase-muscovite zones 2 to 10 feet from the walls of large pegmatite bodies, (2) in or near quartz masses that occur mostly near the centers of the bodies, (3) in thin dikes 5 to 15 feet thick or in similar offshoots from larger bodies, (4) within large pegmatite bodies, in more or less tabular streaks or zones composed principally of plagioclase, quartz, and muscovite.
Nickel-Copper Deposits on the West Coast of Chichagof Island, Alaska
From abstract: On the west coast of Chichagof Island, southeastern Alaska, are three nickel-copper deposits that consist of norite containing the sulfide minerals pyrrhotite, pentlandite, and chalcopyrite. The deposits are within less than a mile of each other and are, by water, 160 miles southwest of Juneau and 70 miles northwest of Sitka. The norite is part of a stock, about 5 square miles of which is above sea level. Other rocks of the stock are amphibolite, amphibolitic norite, gabbro, diorite, quartz diorite, monzonite, granite, pegmatites, quartz veins, and schist inclusions. The stock is intrusive into a Lower Cretaceous (?) graywacke formation and an Upper Triassic (?) greenstone formation, both of which are now metamorphosed to schist.
The Tin-Spodumene Belt of the Carolinas: a Preliminary Report
From abstract: Cassiterite and spodumene, of possible economic importance, occur in a belt, 24.5 miles long and 1.8 miles in maximum width, extending southwestward from Lincolnton to Grover, N. C. This belt is in the Piedmont province, an upland with an average altitude of 1,000 feet, and is readily accessible by rail and highway. The region is underlain by crystalline limestone, quartzite, schists, gneisses, and granite. The rocks strike northeast and, in most of the belt, dip steeply northwest. Most of them are deeply weathered.
Tin Deposits of Irish Creek, Virginia
From abstract: Cassiterite was discovered along Irish Creek in the Blue Ridge in the northern part of Rockbridge County, Va., in 1846, but active prospecting and development work were not begun until 1884. The production has been small, probably less than 1,000 tons of ore, and has come chiefly from workings on Panther Run, a small tributary near the headwaters of Irish Creek.
The Three Kids Manganese District, Clark County, Nevada
Abstract: The Three Kids manganese district, in Clark County, Nev., has produced between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of ore, which contained between 30 and 40 percent manganese, 1.5 percent iron, and 12 percent silica. It is estimated that the reserves in the district aggregate about 5,500,000 tons of ore averaging about 10 percent manganese. Of this amount about 800,000 tons contains more than 20 percent manganese and 4,700,000 tons contains from 5 to 20 percent manganese. The manganese ore is a sedimentary deposit and consists of wad interbedded with lake or playa sediments belonging to the Muddy Creek formation of Pliocene (?) age. Where the manganese content is as high as 30 percent, the wad forms thick massive beds separated by thin almost barren partings. Where the content is low, the wad forms very thin lenses or small irregular blebs scattered through sandstone, or a cement for the sand grains. The zone of manganiferous beds ranges from about 10 to 75 feet in aggregate thickness, but at most places the thickness is between 25 and 40 feet.
Nickel-Copper Deposit at Snipe Bay, Baranof Island, Alaska
Abstract: At Snipe Bay, on the outer coast of Baranof Island, about 46 miles southeast of Sitka in southeastern Alaska, is a nickelcopper deposit that consists of a mass of basic rock intruded into quartzite and quartz schist. Neither the size nor the grade of the deposit is adequately known. Natural exposures and those in a few prospect openings indicate that to an assumed depth of about 130 feet below the lowest point on the outcrop there is a reserve of about 430,000 tons of low-grade nickelbearing material, which, to judge from available assays and from comparison with similar material from other places, probably does not contain more than 0.3 percent each of nickel and copper. The deposit thus appears too small and of too low grade to permit the recovery of the nickel and copper except at a considerable financial loss; but as the location is favorable for largescale, low-cost development, further prospecting may be justified, in the hope that a moderate amount of surface stripping, plus a few diamond-drill holes, might indicate that the deposit is larger, and possibly of higher grade, than it is safe to infer from the available data.
Antimony Deposits of the Stampede Creek Area, Kantishna District, Alaska
From abstract: The Stampede Creek area lies about 120 miles southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. It is most readily accessible by air during the summer and by tractor road during the winter. Since 1936 approximately 2,400 tons of shipping-grade antimony ore and concentrates, containing about 1,300 tons of metallic antimony, have been produced at the Stampede mine. The mine was closed down in the spring of 1941, principally because of the high cost of transportation. The area is underlain largely by metamorphosed rocks of the Birch Creek schist. The schist has been warped and crumpled into many broad, open folds which strike northeast and also plunge to the northeast. The Stampede mine is in the schistose quartzite member of the Birch Creek schist.
Nickel-Copper Deposit at Funter Bay, Admiralty Island, Alaska
From abstract: The nickel-copper deposit near the north end of Admiralty Island, about 18 miles in an airline west of Juneau, in southeastern Alaska, consists of a basic sill which averages somewhat more than 100 feet in thickness. The sill, which dips eastward, is intrusive into a thick sequence of phyllite and various types of schist. The rock of the sill consists principally of the silicate minerals labradorite and olivine, but it also contains magnetite and the sulfides pyrrhotite, pentlandite, and chalcopyrite. It assays, on the average, about 0.34 percent nickel and 0.35 copper, which are doubtless mostly in the pentlandite and chalcopyrite respectively but are probably constituents of other minerals also. A significant proportion of nickel and copper is probably contained in the olivine and perhaps in the pyrrhotite.
Vanadium Deposits of Colorado and Utah: a Preliminary Report
From abstract: Deposits of vanadium-bearing sandstone are widely distributed in western Colorado and eastern Utah and have been the principal domestic source of vanadium, uranium, and radium. Except during a few years when operations were relatively small, deposits at one or more places in this region have been intensively mined since 1909. Production has increased considerably each year since 1937.
The Coso Quicksilver District, Inyo County, California
From abstract: The Coso quicksilver district, which is in the Coso Range, Inyo County, Calif., produced 231 flasks of quicksilver between 1935 and 1939. The quicksilver mineral, cinnabar, was not recognized in the district until 1929, although the hot springs near the deposits have been known since about 1875...The granitic rock on which much of the sinter rests is considerably altered. The cinnabar was deposited as films and grains in open spaces in the sinter, during one stage in a sequence of hot spring activities that still continues. The amount of sinter in the district is estimated to be about 1,800,000 tons. Although the greater part of this does not contain much cinnabar, the total quantity of such material is large enough to be of interest as a low-grade ore.
Manganese Deposits in the Artillery Mountains Region, Mohave County, Arizona
From abstract: The manganese deposits of the Artillery Mountains region lie within an area of about 25 square miles between the Artillery and Rawhide Mountains, on the west side of the Bill Williams River in west-central Arizona. The richest croppings are on the northeast side of this area, among the foothills of the Artillery Mountains. They are 6 to 10 miles from Alamo. The nearest shipping points are Congress, about 50 miles to the east, and Aguila, about 50 miles to the southeast. The principal manganese deposits are part of a sequence of alluvial fan and playa material, probably of early Pliocene age, which were laid down in a fault basin. They are overlain by later Pliocene (?) basalt flows and sediments and by Quaternary basalt and alluvium. The Pliocene (?) rocks are folded into a shallow composite syncline that occupies the valley between the Artillery and Rawhide Mountains, and the folded rocks along either side of the valley, together with the overlying Quaternary basalt, are broken by faults that have produced a group of horsts, grabens, and step-fault blocks.
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