Cerbat Mountains, Mohave County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Cerbat Mountains	Mountain Range
Mohave County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

The principal districts in the Cerbat Range, named in order from north to south, are the Gold Basin, White Hills, Chloride, Mineral Park, Cerbat, Stockton Hill, McConnico, and Maynard. Of these the four most important are the Chloride, Mineral Park, Cerbat, and Stockton Hill districts, and these are often spoken of collectively as the Hualpai or Wallapai district. They are located in the middle part of the Cerbat Mountains, extending from a point just south of Stockton Hill and Cerbat to a point north of Chloride, a distance of about 12 miles, and they have certain features in common. The rocks of this portion of the mountains are essentially of the pre-Cambrian complex, and consist of gray granite, gneissoid granite, and dark schists, including hornblende, mica, and garnet schists. They are flanked on the west in the Cerbat district by local areas of rhyolite and other Tertiary volcanic rocks. To the north, through Mineral Park and toward Chloride, they are intruded by distinctly younger masses of granite porphyry. Furthermore, they are cut by dikes of pegmatite, aplitic granite, diabase, vogesite, minette, and rhyolite.

The deposits are well-defined fissure veins, of which there are two main sets, one striking about N. 10° to 30° W. and the other N. 45° to 70° W., usually with steep dips. According to Comstock a there is also a not generally recognized but important older latitudinal or east-west auriferous .vein system, whose veins, usually not prominent or not apparent at the surface, have been encountered mainly in some of the deeper mines and have contributed handsomely toward the enrichment of the ores of these mines. The Elkhart and Tennessee mines at Chloride are given as examples. Veins of the same strike usually occur in two " conjugated systems " that is, dipping in opposite directions, indicating that a compressive stress has originated the fissures. The dips are usually steep. The veins are more or less clearly associated with younger intrusions of granite porphyry, and some of them follow dikes of vogesite, minette, or aplite. The croppings, which are generally prominent, consist of dark reddish-brown quartz and altered country rock stained by the oxides of iron and manganese. The veins are straight and some are long. The walls are usually good and marked by soft gouge, although many veins are "frozen " to the walls. The gangue is quartz, in many places shattered and recemented by a later generation of calcite. Among the primary ores the most important are pyrite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, galena, and zinc blende, more rarely molybdenite and stibnite. Silver and lead predominate in the Chloride, Mineral Park, and Stockton Hill districts; gold and silver in the Cerbat district. This primary ore is leaner in gold and silver than the oxidized ore, and many mines, notably in the Chloride and Mineral Park districts, which near the surface were silver mines, with increase in depth carried more lead, and at still greater depths seemed to become cupriferous. The so-called "copper belt" of the area extends from Mineral Park northwestward toward Chloride for a distance of several miles.

The water level is found at a maximum depth of 400 feet, but in some places lies considerably nearer the surface. In general the ores above the water level are oxidized, but the line between the two classes is not always sharply marked. In many places (e. g., in the Tennessee vein) galena, and locally, also, pyrite, appears near the surface in association with oxidized ores. In the Towne mine and a few others oxidized ores are found below water level, but not to any great depth, so far as known. The secondary or oxidized ores consist chiefly of native silver, probably also some native gold, hornsilver, and cerussite. Ruby silver and argentite are also present with oxidized ore, but do not seem to occupy any well-defined zone between the oxidized and primary ores.

Many of the ore shoots coincide with intersections or forking of veins. Good examples are mentioned in the description of the Pinkham, Elkhart, Rainbow, Pay Roll, and Tennessee mines.