Bradford Mine, Salero area, Tyndall District, Santa Rita Mts, Santa Cruz Co., Arizona, USA

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‡Ref.: Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 219-220.

Keith, Stanton B. (1975), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 191, Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz County Arizona: 84 (Table 4).

Niemuth, N.J. & K.A. Phillips (1992), Copper Oxide Resources, Arizona Department of Mines & Mineral Resources Open File Report 92-10: 16 (Table 1).

Arizona Bureau of Mines card file Santa Cruz County.

MRDS database Dep. ID file #10113654, MAS ID #0040230134.

A former underground Pb-Ag-Cu-Au mine located on 5 patented claims in the NW¼NW¼ sec. 21, T.22S., R.15E. (Mount Wrightson 15 minute topo map), in the southern border of the Tyndall District, 5 miles SW of Patagonia, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet, in a side gulch of Sonoita Creek, from which it is about 1/3 mile distant, on private land. Discovered in the late 1870's. Owned by C.H. Ferry of New York (circa 1915); Bradford Copper Mining Co.; and, McFarland. NOTE: Alternate coordinates provided: 31.4667N, 110.8228W.

Mineralization is copper carbonates and oxides with minor cerussite in quartz and iron oxides in sheared, altered, and metamorphosed Cretaceous sedimentary rocks and tuff breccia engulfed in Laramide quartz diorite.

Country rock is fine-grained diorite, and at the mine the diorite is seemingly cut by an east-west agglomeratic rhyolite dike or possibly is in contact with a sunken fault block of this rock about 240 feet wide. The deposits are associated with the contact. The dike contains inclusions of the diorite and is traversed by a north-south sheeting. On the east the rhyolite overlies the diorite and covers Sanford Hill, where it is rather thick.

The deposits are contained in the dike, which near its middle is traversed longitudinally by silicified parallel croppings. The ore contains principally malachite, azurite, chrysocolla, and a little chalcocite. It occurs mainly in the altered rhyolite and diorite, which it impregnates and replaces, and locally it is accompanied by iron oxide and quartz.

Workings include shafts, drifts and open cut operations aggregating about 1,000 feet of work distributed on 3 levels, but mainly on the 60 and 120 foot levels. Developed to 200 feet. Worked sporadically from the 1870's through 1912. Produced some 300 tons of ore averaging about 10% Cu, 4 oz. Ag/T and minor Pb & Au.

Mineral List

Azurite Cerussite

Chalcocite Chrysocolla

Malachite Pyrite

6 entries listed. 6 valid minerals.