Latitude: 33°2'31"N
Longitude: 114°10'28"W
A former underground Pb-Ag-F-Ba-V-Mo-Zn-Au-Cu (As-Se-Be-Sb) mine located in North-central sec. 36, T4S, R19W (protracted), S33W from Castle Dome Peak, on the Kofa Wildlife Refuge. Owned at times, or in part by N. Gunther & Co.; The Castle Dome Mining & Smelting Co. Owned by Mrs. Eliza DeLuce (1933-1951). This was the second patented claim in Arizona (1871). As permitted by the mining laws of the time, it is 2000 feet long by 200 feet wide.
Mineralization is lenses and shoots of rich, argentiferous galena, up to 10 feet wide, separated by barren or weakly mineralized zones, with barite, calcite, and fluorite gangue, in veins along well-defined faults with strong cross-fracturing in Mesozoic slate and diorite porphyry and quartz porphyry dikes. The principal vein strikes N18ºW and dips from 45º to 55ºE. It has a depth to top of 0 and a depth to bottom of 68.58 meters. Footwall is mainly dense gray slate and the hanging wall is quartz porphyry. On the 200 level, all of the wall rocks are appreciably seriticized & silicified. A mantle of surface gravel included numerous nuggets of partly altered argentiferous galena just above the rock pediment. Economic mineralization apparently was limited to about 200 feet in depth. A related rock unit is the Kofa volcanics.
Workings include irregular, partially filled stopes mined from numerous (11) old shafts. A 300 foot deep shaft existed in 1881, along with drifts, tunnels, winzes, etc. A total of 11 shafts, more or less connected by irregular, partially filled stopes, existed. The main shaft is 225 feet deep on a 45T to 55º incline. This property was largely mined out prior to 1880.
Production was about 58,738 tons of ore averaging 4% Pb, 0.1% Cu, and 1.3 oz/t Ag. Stope fill & dumps later worked for Pb, Ag, Fluorspar. One of the major producing mines in early days but total output remains unknown.
References
Blake, W.P. (1880).
Blake, W.P. (1881a), Vanadinite in Arizona, American Journal of Science: 22: 235.
Blake, W.P. (1881b), On the occurrence of vanadates of lead at the Castle Dome mines in Arizona, American Journal of Science: 22: 410-411.
The Resources of Arizona - A Reliable Manual of Information Concerning the Territory, compiled by Patrick Hamilton (1881), Scottsdale, AZ: 72.
The History of Arizona, 2nd. state legislature, Chap. X: 67.
Wilson, E.D. (1933) Geology and Mineral Deposits of Southern Yuma County, Arizona. Arizona Bureau of Mines Bulletin 134: 90-92.
Phelps, Harlow D. Fluorspar Lead Silver Mines Castle Dome District. War Minerals Report O.
Haury, P.S. (1945) US Bureau of Mines Report on Arizona Lead Co, July, 1945.
Galbraith, F.W. (1947), Minerals of Arizona, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 153: 18.
Wilson, E.D., et al (1950), Arizona zinc & lead deposits, Part I, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 156: 98-115.
Wilson, E.D., et al (1951), Arizona zinc and lead deposits, part II, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 158: 106-107.
Keith, Stanton B. (1978), State of Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology, Geol. Sur. Br. Bull. 192, Index of Mining Properties in Yuma County, Arizona: 119 (Table 4).
Phillips, K.A. (1987), Arizona Industrial Minerals, 2nd. Edition, Arizona Department of Mines & Minerals Mineral Report 4, 185 pp.
Anthony, J.W., et al (1995), Mineralogy of Arizona, 3rd.ed.: 229.
Arizona Bureau of Mines file data.
U.S. Bureau of Mines - Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mining Technology production file data.
U.S. Bureau of Mines file data-cluster #343, Flora Temple.
MRDS database Dep. ID file #10037073, MRDS ID #M030315; and, Dep. ID #10161771, MAS ID #0040270004.
Mineral List
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