Latitude: 31°40'6"N
Longitude: 110°52'24"W
‡Ref.: Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 191-193.
Keith, Stanton B. (1975), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 191, Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz County Arizona: 87 (Table 4).
U.S. Bureau of Mines field notes AG15.
Arizona Bureau of Mines card file Santa Cruz County.
MRDS database Dep. ID file #10098360, MRDS ID #M030410; and Dep. ID #10135209, MAS ID #0040230382.
A former small underground Pb-Ag-Cu-Zn-Au-Mo mine located in the NE ¼ sec. 26, T.20S., R.14E., on 5 claims (3 patented: Santa Maria, Tia Juana, and the Santa Cruz claims), in the west side of Josephine Canyon, ¾ mile from the stream channel, between elevations of 6,100 and 6,800 feet, in the high, prominent, narrow ridge that separates this canyon from Cottonwood and Montosa Canyons on the west, on private land. The vein was discovered in the early 1860's. Owned at times, or in part, by the Tiajuana Mines, Inc.; and, Bekins.
Mineralization is a strong quartz-fissure vein with spotty sulfides, oxidized at the surface with iron, manganese, and copper carbonates and oxides. Spotty high-grade silver chlorides. The wall rock is Laramide quartz monzonite or quartz diorite.
The fissure vein stands vertical and is about 14 feet wide with a known length of 2½ miles (4023.25 meters long and 12.19 meters wide). Its course across the country is well marked by a reddish-brown belt of croppings and their resultant debris. The vein strikes N.85ºW. and extends from Josephine Canyon westward across Cottonwood Canyon and into Montosa Canyon, 1½ miles above the mine and Tia Juana ridge.
The croppings, which in places rise boldly 20 feet above the surface, consist almost wholly of quartz, stained reddish and dark brown by limonite, manganese and copper carbonate.
The quartz occurs mostly in multiple-banded parallel reefs with a small amount of altered mineralized rock. In polaces the vein is crossed by a nearly vertical sheeting and slickensiding showing both vertical and horizontal movement to have taken place along the vein. On the north slices of the country rock diorite several feet thick dip to the NE and are separated by a few inches of gouge.
The Montosa Mine, 3 miles distant from the Tia Juana, lies directly on its course, suggesting that the two deposits, though possibly not connected, may be on the same general fault or fissure.
Workings are cuts, drifts, crosscut tunnels, and shallow shaft(s) aggregating an estimated minimum of 500 feet (152 meters) of workings, distributed at intervals throughout a distance of nearly 2,000 feet and a vertical range of about 600 feet. This mine was worked for silver chlorides in the 1870's and some sporadic mining occurred through 1968. Production would be some 100 tons of ore averaging about 15 oz. Ag/T, 3% Pb, 3% Zn, and 1% Cu.
Mineral List
11 entries listed. 8 valid minerals.
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