Austerlitz Mine group

Mining District and Mines

Oro Blanco District

Location

?⁵

Mineral Products⁶

Au, Ag, Cu, Pb-, Zn-

Ownership⁶

Owner Name: Thompson, Noon, Barkley, Border Mines Co., Canes, Oro Blanco Mg. Co., Platoro Corp.

Type of Operation and Production⁶

Shaft and tunnel operations. Worked intermittently from late 1800's to 1963 and produced some 3,800 tons of ore averaging about 0.5 oz. Au/T, 12 oz. Ag/T, 1% Cu, and minor Pb and Zn.

Geology⁶

Quartz-fissure veins with spotty and generally weak auriferous and argentiferous chalcopyrite, pyrite, tetrahedrite and minor galena and sphalerite; and silicified lens-like bodies of auriferous quartz veinlets and stringers. Wall rocks are Jurassic welded tuff in fault contact with Cretaceous sediments. Associated Tertiary intrusive quartz monzonite dikes. Weak wall rock alteration. Oxidation and supergene enrichment produced limited, rich, near surface ore.

References

1. Mineral Appraisal of Coronado National Forest, Part 12, Santa Rita Mountains Unit, MLA11-94 (1994). SR 591-609
   https://data.azgs.arizona.edu/api/v1/collections/BMRI-1552428987530-264/usbm_mla_011-94.pdf
2. Mining in the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains of Arizona, U.S. Department of Interior, 1915. Republished 2014 by Kerby Jackson.
3. mindat.org
4. USGS Mineral Resources Data System - possibly using NAD72 (https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/map-commodity.html#home)
5. https://westernmininghistory.com/mine-detail/10162214/
6. Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz county, Arizona; Stanton B. Keith, Arizona Geological Survey, Bulletin 191 (1975).