Copper Duke Mine, Copper Duke Hill, Tiptop Mine group (Tiptop Camp prospects/mines), Tiptop Mountain, Helvetia, Helvetia-Rosemont District, Santa Rita Mts, Pima Co., Arizona, USA

• Display
  • Standard
  • Detailed
  • By Strunz Category
  • By Dana Category
• Photos
  • Mineral Photos (1)
  • - Full View (1)
  • Site Photos (1)
  • - Modern Site Photo (1)
  • Add Photo
• Maps
  • Map Pages
  • Nearest Localities
• Search
  • Mineral Search
  • Search Google
  • Link to USGS

‡Ref.: Copper Handbook (1904, 1905, 1907).

Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 92, 120-124.

Creasey, S.C. & G.L. Quick (1955), Copper deposits of part of Helvetia mining district, Pima County, Arizona, USGS Bull. 1027-F: 320.

Keith, Stanton B. (1974), Arizona Bureau of Geology & Mineral Technology, Geological Survey Branch Bull. 189, Index of Mining Properties in Pima County, Arizona: 129 (Table 4).

Arizona Bureau of Mines field notes (1971), vol. 1, No. 2.

Drewes, H.D. (1971) Geologic map of the Sahuarita quadrangle, southeast of Tucson, Pima County, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geologic Investigations Map I-613, 1 sheet, scale 1:48,000.

MRDS database Dep. ID file #10039401, MRDS ID #M050032.

A former small underground Cu-Ag-Au mine group located in the NE ¼ sec. 15, T.18S., R.15E., at the former Tiptop Camp, about ¾ mile north of Helvetia, just west of the Tiptop Mine, east side of Copper Duke Hill, a northwest foothill of Tiptop Mountain, and 28 miles SE of Tucson on private land. Discovered in the early 1870's and was located in 1898. Owned at times, or in part, by the Tip Top Copper Co.; American Smelting & Refining Co. (ASARCO); Chamrod; Forbes; Mattingly; Sierra Mining & Ranching Co.; Tip Top Mining Co.; and the D. & P. Mining Co.

Mineralization is irregular pockets, stringers, and pyrometasomatic replacement orebodies, mostly oxidized, with copper minerals, often associated with quartz stringers and seams in shattered, faulted, silicified, and silicated Paleozoic limestone close to a contact with underlying Paleozoic Bolsa Quartzite in a thrust-faulted klippe. One orebody is known as the main azurite orebody.

Local structures include thrust and normal faulting, fracture zones., homoclinal. Regional trends include tilting and broad open folds in the south and extensive faulting in the north.

Workings include shallow shafts, tunnels crosscuts, a winze, and open cuts.

Mineral List

Azurite

Chrysocolla

Malachite

3 entries listed. 3 valid minerals.