Lil' Frenzy Mine, Cooper Canyon Mining District, Riverside County, California, USAi

Regional Level Types
Lil' Frenzy Mine	Mine
Cooper Canyon Mining District	Mining District
Riverside County	County
California	State
USA	Country

The Lil’Frenzy Pegmatite is a 90 foot x 150 foot erosion remnant of what was originally a much more extensive pegmatite, and caps a portion of a ridge approximately 1/2 mile north of the Blue Chihuahua Mine. The pegmatite is approximately three feet thick, and is a southeastward dipping (about 10-15 degrees) blanket-type dike. The host rocks consist of hybrid gneissic and metasedimentary rocks of the Southern California Batholith. Isolated small bodies of scheelite-bearing tactite and garnet skarn also occur commonly throughout the immediate area.

Al Ordway related that following the discovery of the Blue Chihuahua Pegmatite in the late 1960’s, Bob Bartsch explored the nearby pegmatites including the remnant on the hill north of the Blue Chihuahua, but found nothing notable.

In 1982 Al Ordway and I (Nicholas J. Rose) again explored the areas north and east of the Blue Chihuahua, but again nothing special was found at the dike on the ridge.

At the Pasadena Mineral Show in November 1988, Ken and Dana Gochenour exhibited a few hydroxyl-herderite crystals they found at a location they called the Marion Godshaw Memorial Quarry (MGM). Al told me that they had gotten lucky barring out rocks at one of the dikes we’d visited years earlier.

The Gochenours never filed a claim on the site, and when I next hiked back to the location in 1994, only a small area along the west edge of the pegmatite had been disturbed. All exposed areas along the perimeter of the pegmatite were barren, including the area surrounding the limited work along the western edge of the dike. It was understandable that no further work had been done here.

Subsequent work by hand over the next decade proved the interior of the dike to be relatively pocket rich. The small pockets produced quartz, corroded microcline, albite (cleavelandite) and mica. Some pockets contained tourmaline (shorl), occasionally hydroxyl-herderite, and occasionally topaz. Very rarely a pocket might contain apatite or corroded beryl. Three pockets produced the first beryllonite crystals found in a California pegmatite: a tiny example in a pocket found 4/29/1995, the largest specimen found 10/19/1997, and some small specimens found 1/9/2006. The largest beryllonite found in 1997 was confirmed by Anthony R. Kampf, and one portion of that crystal is in the mineral collection of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California.

The location is still under claim as the Lil’Frenzy, and is now within the boundaries of the Beauty Peak Wilderness Area. Therefore no new claims can be filed in this district, and the BLM is closely monitoring all activity in the area due to the increasing interest in growing associated with the California Pot Rush.

NOTE: Coordinates are estimated.

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References