Rose Tungsten Mine (Rose Tungsten property; Shoestring property; S. Rose claims; Smith Mine; Smith property), Rock Creek Canyon, Jim Sam Butte area, Spring Creek area, Spring Creek District, Gila Co., Arizona, USA
Latitude: 34°2'0"N
Longitude: 111°4'32"W
A former surface and underground tungsten mine located on 5 unpatented claims in the center sec. 13, T8N, R12E, in Rock Creek Canyon, about 2¾ miles WNW of Jim Sam Butte, and about 3 miles just S of W of Robbers Roost Mountain, in the upper Spring Creek area, northern part of the Sierra Ancha, 4 miles west of Horrel's Ranch, on National Forest land. Discovered by, and owned by R. O'Quinn (1937); and, Messrs. O'Quinn, J. Binkley & others (operators). Owned by Mr. C.A. Haught (1980). Produced 1937-1958.
Mineralization is an irregular ore body hosted in Apache Series rocks (quartzite, shale, conglomerate). The ore zone has a depth-to-top of 50.29 meters, strikes N45W and dips 80-85SW.
It is a flat-lying quartzite, shale and conglomerate of the Precambrian Apache series, down into older, tilted rocks. The older rocks consist of laminated, somewhat scistose, ripple-marked beds, in places chloritized and imporegnated with specularite. They strike NE-ward & dip about 45NW & have been intruded by NE-ward trending sill-like bodies of fine-gained, dark-gray to black rock as much as 300 feet wide. Microscopically, this rock is seen to be a diorite porphyry that has undergone considerable silicification.
Two parallel quartz veins, 17 feet apart and averaging 8 inches in width, cut the dark gray intrusive on the west side of the canyon, 17 feet apart. They dtrike NW-ward & dip 80º to 85º SW. The veins average 8 inches (20 cm) wide. Vein filling consists of coarse-grained, shiny, grayish-white quartz with minor calcite and scattered masses of other minerals. Vein walls show alteration to coarse sericite.
No detailed geologic map of this area exists, but mapping to the N shows NE-striking Precambrian sediments and intrusive rocks (Gastil, 1958). The silicified diorite porphyry intrudes ore-containing veins, which in turn cut rocks of the Apache series.
Workings include surface cuts, a lower adit more than 40 feet long, 2 upper adits, each about 40 feet long, 50 feet higher than the lower adit, plus one 30 foot long adit further east. Mined by coyoting. Planned to sink new 100 foot shaft in 1941. Production was a few tons of tungsten concentrates in the late 1930's and in the late 1950's.
References
Wilson, E.D. (1941), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 148: 27-28, 30.
Wilson, E.D. (1941), Arizona University Bulletin: 12(2).
Dale, V.B. (1961), Tungsten Deposits of Gila, Yavapai, and Mohave Counties, Arizona, US Bureau of Mines Information Circular 8078: 18-19.
Lemmon, D.M., and Tweto, O.L. (1962) Tungsten in the U.S., USGS map, MR-25.
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.
Lemmon, D.M., unpublished data.
Geological Society of America Bulletin: 69: 1495-1514 & plates.
U.S. Bureau of Mines file data, cluster No. 1024.
USGS Buzzard Roost Mesa Quadrangle map.
Arizona Department of Mineral Resources Rose Tungsten and Wild Bull claims file.
Arizona Department of Mineral Resources U file, W 9.
MRDS database Dep. ID #10046310, MRDS ID #M241214; and Dep. ID #10282505, MAS ID #0040070592.
Mineral List
6 entries listed. 3 valid minerals.
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