‡Ref.: The Resources of Arizona - A Manual of Reliable Information Concerning the Territory, compiled by Patrick Hamilton (1881), Scottsdale, AZ: 47.
Anderson, C.A., and Kupfer, D.H. (1945) Report on the properties of the Amargosa Molybdenum and Copper Corporation, Pima County, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report [unnumbered], 20 p., 8 sheets.
U.S. Department of the Interior War Mineral Report. No. 405 (1945) Esperanza Property, Pima County, Arizona.
Tainter, S.L. (1947b), Amargosa (Esperanza) molybdenum-copper property, Pima County, Arizona, U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigation 4016.
Schmidt, H.A., et al (1959), Disseminated deposits at the Esperanza copper mine, in Southern Arizona Guidebook II, Arizona Geological Society Digest: 2: 205.
Kirkemo, H., Anderson, C.A., and Creasey, S.C. (1965), Investigations of Molybdenum Deposits in the Conterminous United States 1942-60, Contributions to Economic Geology, USGS Bull. 1182-E: E12-E13.
Lynch, D.W. (1966), The economic geology of the Esperanza mine and vicinity, in S.R. Titley and C.L. Hicks (editors), Geology of the porphyry copper deposits, southwestern North America, University of Arizona Press, Tucson: 267-279.
Engineering and Mining Journal (1970) Duval Dedicates the Sierrita Open pit: July, 1970.
Engineering and Mining Journal (1970) Sierrita Makes it with Big Equipment: August, 1970.
Keith, Stanton B. (1974), Arizona Bureau of Geology & Mineral Technology, Geological Survey Branch Bull. 189, Index of Mining Properties in Pima County, Arizona: 135 (Table 4).
Aiken, D.M., and West, R.J. (1978) Some geologic aspects of the Sierrita-Esperanza copper-molybdenum deposit, Pima County, Arizona, in Jenney, J.P., and Hauck, H.R., eds., Proceedings of the Porphyry Copper Symposium, Tucson, Arizona, March 18-20, 1976: Arizona Geological Society Digest: 11: 117-128.
Mining Annual Review (1985): 55, 94 & 329.
Niemuth, N.J. & K.A. Phillips (1992), Copper Oxide Resources, Arizona Department of Mines & Mineral Resources Open File Report 92-10: 12 (Table 1).
Sawyer, M.B., Gurmendi, A.C., Daley, M.R., and Howell, S.B. (1992) Principal Deposits of Strategic and Critical Minerals in Arizona, U.S. Bureau of Mines Special Publication, 334 pp.
Anthony, J.W., et al (1995), Mineralogy of Arizona, 3rd. ed.: 107, 114, 163, 166, 220, 278, 312, 383, 405.
Arizona Bureau of Mines file data.
MRDS database Dep. ID file #10039594, MRDS ID #M050391; and, Dep. ID #10186590, MAS ID #0040190003.
A former large surface Cu-Mo-Ag-Au-Pb-Zn (U) mine located in the SE ¼ sec. 8, the NW ¼ sec. 16 & the NE ¼ sec. 17, T.18S., R.12E.(Batamote Hills 7.5 minute topo map), 4½ miles SW of Twin Buttes and 48 km S of Tucson on private property. Discovered by P.H. Chambers in 1895. Produced 1959-1986. Owned at times, or in part, by the Duval Sulphur & Potash Co.; and the Duval Corp. (a Pennzoil subsidiary). Closed December, 1981.
Mineralization is an ovate, amssive ore body comprised of disseminated copper sulfides, oxides, and carbonates with molybdenite and minor lead and zinc minerals, and traces of torbernite in brecciated, fissured, and jointed, strongly altered Laramide intrusive complex of quartz latite to andesite invading Triassic to Cretaceous volcanics. Ore control was faults which controlled the upward movement of hypogene and downward movement of supergene metallizaton. Ore concentration was supergene enrichment. Metallization occurred during several intrusive pulses and alteration. Alteration included clay (moderate to intense), quartz-sericite-K feldspar argillation, silicification, and biotite. An associated rock unit is the Ruby Star Quartz Monzonite Porphyry and the Ox Frame Volcanics. The ore body is 1,280.16 meters long, 701.04 meters wide, depth to top of 30.48 meters, depth to bottom 158.5 meters and 128.02 meters thick.
Local structures include a broad NW-trending shear zone. Faults trending NE-ENE, and dipping NW and SE; NW-NNW, dipping NE and SW; N-S, and dipping E and W.
Workings were open pit operations at 1,280 meters long by 609.6 meters wide. From 1959 through 1972, some 59,000,000 tons of ore averaging about 0.5% Cu, 0.017% Mo, 0.04 oz. Ag/T and minor Au, Zn, & Pb have been produced. Ore grade has averaged 0.5% Cu and 0.028% Mo since the start of operation.
‡Ref.: Yale Peabody GNIS database (NOTE: this database is derived from USGS 1:24,000 topographic map data).
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Map Reference: 31°52'4"N , 111°7'44"W
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