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Kings Creek District, Cherokee Co., South Carolina, USA
Ref.: Brobst, D.A. (1958), Barite Resources of the United States, USGS Bull. 1072-B: 89-90; Van Horn, Le Grand, and McMurray (1949).
A mining district of baryte deposits that lie in a belt a few miles wide in York and Cherokee Counties. The deposits occur in the so-called Carolina barite belt that extends for about 20 miles from Crowders Mountain, 4 miles east of Kings Mountain in adjacnet North Carolina, southwestward to near the junction of South Carolina Highways 103 and 105, about 5 miles east of Gaffney, SC.
The barite occurs in discontinuous veins and replacement masses in a quartz-sericite schist along the contact between the Battleground schist and the Bessemer granite, both of Precambrian age. The width of the outcrop of the sericite schist containing barite ranges from a few feet to more than 1,100 feet. The zone of schist and barite generally strikes N.45ºE. and dips 60ºSE. Local folds disturb this trend only slightly between the various deposits.
The barite of the veins is white to rose, is massive, granular, or coarsely crystalline, and occurs locally in a system of veins that are en echelon along the strike and dip of the schist. Some veins, however, cut across the foliation of the host rock. The maximum width of the veins is 8 feet, and the average about 18 inches (45 cm). The contacts between the veins and the schist are rather distinct, although some fragments of sericite schist are included in the outer parts of the veins.
Minerals associated with the barite veins in the Carolina belt are galena, sphalerite, and calcite in the area around Crowders Mountain, and various sulfides of iron and copper near Kings Creek, SC. Other minerals occurring with the barite are tourmaline, magnetite, and chlorite.
Much of the wall rock near the veins contains barite as disseminated fragments or aggregates ranging in size from fine flakes to clots an inch (2.5 cm) or more long. Near the veins these partly replaced rocks contain as much as 20% barite. The content of barite diminishes away from the veins in an irregular manner.
Studies of thin sections (Van Horn, et al) indicate that the barite replaces quartz and sericite and also occurs as interstitial filling in the sericite schist.
Mineral List
Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities32 entries listed. 24 valid minerals.
Localities in this Region
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