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Morning Star claim, Southern Belle Mine (Southern Belle gp; Morning Star property/claims), Apache Peak area, Campo Bonito, Oracle District (Control District; Old Hat District; Santa Catalina District), Santa Catalina Mts, Pinal Co., Arizona, USA

Latitude: 32°33'25"N
Longitude: 110°44'9"W
A patented Pb-W claim and former surface and underground mine, located in secs. 17-20, T10S, R16E, the northern portion of the Southern Belle group, about ½ mile South of Campo Bonito and 7 road miles from Oracle, at about 5,200 feet of altitude, on National Forest land. Owned by E.J. Ewing (1913); and, Mrs. Elizabeth L. Wood (1941). First produced 1913 and closed in 1953. Additional names which apply to this locality: Happy Thot; Gold Bug; General Hancock; Ewing property; Careless.

Mineralization is a 125 foot by a maximum width of 50 feet vein that strikes N65W and dips 50SW. Its footwall is a well-defined fault fissure whose age relative to the mineralization was not determined. This vein consists of coarsely crystalline, grayish-white quartz, cut by numerous branching veinlets of finer-grained white quartz. It contains irregular disseminations of scheelite, mostly as particles larger than 16 mesh in size. A pyrometasomatic, contact metamorphic deposit with irregular massive ore bodies. Alteration is silicification and dolomitization. Ore control was fault zone and intersections of faults (scheelite mineralization seems to occur at or near intersections of NW- and NE-trending fractures. Host rock is Escabrosa Limestone.

Ore bodies are concentrated near the Mogul Fault in silicified limestone and are irregularly shaped massive areas which have non-uniform distribution of scheelite. Scheelite occurs disseminated, in narrow stringers and in quartz-scheelite veinlets. Appreciable amounts of scheelite exist only in the hanging wall of the Mogul Fault. There is a small amount os scheelite in the footwall. Pink quartzite border are on all sides except on the NE.

The canyon here exposes thick-bedded, dark gray Paleozoic limestone underlain by Precambrian granite; the limestone-granite contact appears to be a low-angle fault genetically related to the Mogul fault, which crops out 300 feet North of the mine. Local features include the Mogul Fault Zone. Regional block faulting trending NNW. Regional trends include post-Cretaceous pre-Pliocene thrusts and high angle normal and reverse faults; Cretaceous-Tertiary intrusives and consequent faulting.

Workings include a 110 foot inclined shaft; 205 feet of drifts, and 88 feet of crosscuts on the 100 foot level; two short adits, and one haulage adit. One 20 foot shaft. One 65 by 45 foot open cut from 12 to 50 feet deep, with a stope to the West. Several shallow pits. The haulage adit is beneath the surface 'glory hole' that is about 35 feet wide. Work began in 1952 financed by DMEA contract. Mine shut down in 1953.

Production was about 5 tons of concentrates at 67% WO3, plus an additional 8 tons of concentrates (1940's). During the years 1939 to 1943, concentrates contained 65 to 75% WO3.

References

Wilson, E.D. (1941), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 148: 33.

Dale, V.B. (1959) Tungsten Deposits of Yuma, Maricopa, Pinal, and Graham Counties, Arizona. U.S. Bureau of Mines Report of Investigation 5516.

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.

MRDS database Dep. ID #10039524; MRDS ID #M050218.

Mineral List

Calcite
Dolomite
Galena
Scheelite


4 entries listed. 4 valid minerals.

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Copyright © Jolyon Ralph and Ida Chau 1993-2011. Jobs in Arizona, USA Site Map. Locality, mineral & photograph data are the copyright of the individuals who submitted them.Further information contact the Site hosted & developed by Jolyon Ralph. Mindat.org is an online information resource dedicated to providing free mineralogical information to all. Mindat relies on the contributions of hundreds of members and supporters. Mindat does not offer minerals for sale. If you would like to add information to improve the quality of our database, then click here to register. Current server date and time: 27th Jun 2011 06:26:15
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