Krebs Pigment and Chemical Co. mine, Cartersville Mining District, Bartow County, Georgia, USAi

Regional Level Types
Krebs Pigment and Chemical Co. mine	Mine
Cartersville Mining District	Mining District
Bartow County	County
Georgia	State
USA	Country

The Krebs Pigment & Chemical Company of Newport, Del., owned lot 548 and 25 acres in lots 533 and 605, joining 548 on the north and south, respectively, 4th district, 3d section, 1 1/2 miles southeast of Cartersville. The barytes deposit which is on lot 548 was worked as early as 1900 by J. T. Williams. In 1914 the company began work and in 1917 installed a steam shovel. Work was stopped in 1918.

The mine is on the river road on the west side of the Etowah, 250 yards north of the Western & Atlantic Railroad bridge. The opencut is on the west side of the public road and extends into the eastern slope of a quartzite hill approximately 40 feet higher than the river and 740 feet above sea level. Just west of the mine, the hill rises to an altitude of 820 feet forming the south end of a higher ridge that trends generally northward between Cartersville and Etowah River. The washing plant and mud ponds occupied the flood plain east of the road. The river flows southwest at this place.

The geological conditions at the Krebs mine in a general way are similar to those already described in connection with other barytes deposits, except the difference in strike of the rock. The only rock outcropping at the open-cut is Weisner quartzite which strikes N.15°-20°W: and dips steeply northeast. This is shown in an outcrop an exposure at the surface and in the west wall of the cut. The quartzite foot wall is covered in most places by the dark soft manganiferous and ocherous clayey formation against which lies the red and yellow ore-bearing clay carrying quartzite fragments and a few water-worn quartz pebbles.

Barytes occurs as an erosional and detrital accumulation of fragmental ore in a soft clay formation that strikes N.l5°-20°W. parallel to the underlying rock. No limestone has been found in the mining operations, but it once probably occupied a large part of the Etowah valley east of the mine and it now presumably forms the valley floor at a depth to which decomposition and disintegration have not penetrated. The ore undoubtedly weathered out of the limestone where it filled veins and pockets in the hard rock. The size of the deposit on this property is about 500 feet long, more than 100 feet wide, and 80 feet deep. These dimensions are proved by the open-cut work, but the deposit continues northwest from lot 548 to the adjoining property of the New Riverside Ochre Company, and its width extends more than twice that of the open-cut, as shown by prospect pits down the eastern hillside. A well dug for drinking water just west of the public road contained barytes fragments in the bottom, at a depth of 47 feet which is several feet lower than the bed of Etowah River.

In abundance and quality of ore the deposit compares. favorably with the best deposits of the Cartersville district. The ore fragments have both crystalline and granular texture, and are generally clean and white under a thin ferruginous surface stain. It is not unusual however, to find some of the fragments permeated with a brown stain as the result of the alteration of pyrite that occurs as small irregular grains in the mass of barytes. Manganese is another impurity of the ore, generally as pyrolusite or wad, coating the ore fragments or filling fractures.

Although no fossils have been found at the Krebs mine, there do occur certain unusual forms of barytes that strongly suggest organic structure. These forms are pod- or bud-like generally about 2 1/2 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in greatest diameter. They are thickest in the middle and taper convexly to a point at either end much like the fruit pods of the milk weed. The surface is rough with parallel longitudinal furrows. As the interior of the forms is uniformly crystalline and as there is no positive evidence of organic structure, it seems probable that the "pods" are merely aggregates of parallel tabular crystals arranged in columnar form, radiating outward from a common long axis and tapering at either end.

A rarer form of occurrence is the mammillary structure. Only a few specimens of this type were found at the Krebs mine, but these are almost pure and exhibit an intimate combination of concentric films and radiate fibers, beautifully intergrown in cauliflower clusters less than an inch long and terminated by smooth mammillary surfaces. The specimens tend to break as thin white concentric shells whose curved surfaces show here and there the delicate black tracing of dendritic manganese. Mammillary and stalactitic forms occur in combination and are somewhat similar.