MorningStar Mine

Mining District and Mines

Greaterville Area

Morningstar Mine

Type of Operation and Production

Historical 1885: 75 foot shaft and drifts (3);
1918 Inclined Shaft, 225 feet deep with over 600 feet of drifting at 225 foot level at 225 foot level (5); Inclined shaft, 256 feet deep, with about 700 feet of drifts, raises, and stopes (17)¹

USBM: Underground was inaccessible; surface examined only¹

Alternate Names

St. Louis¹

Isabel¹

Location

31.760404, -110.763053³

31.75902, -110.76429⁴

S. ctl. sec. 24
N. ctl. sec. 25
T. 19 S., R. 15 E.¹

Mineral Products

Historical: 1875- 1946: sporadic production, 300+ tons of ore averaging about 6% Pb, 7% Zn, 11 oz / t Ag, , 0.5 oz / t Au, and 1% Cu (1).
1886: shipped ore said average around 40% Pb, 75oz /t Ag, and 12 oz/t (3)
1900 - 1910: sorted ore about $800/t in Ag, Au, and Pb
1922: 30 inch sample from 90 foot level assayed $2.80 Au, 16.9 oz Ag, 2.2% Cu, 41.2% Pb, 12.1% Zn (11)
1945; sample from stope in 100 foot level, 0.42 oz/t Au, 5.00 oz/t Ag, 1.31% Cu, 8.36% Pb and 19.46% Zn (5)
Ore shipments total no more than 250 tons (17)¹

USBM: Ag, 2 - 23 ppm; Au, 56 - 3,600 ppb; Cu, 375 - 2,277 ppm; mn 745 - 3,495 ppm, Pb, 346 - 4,598 ppm; Zn, 1,144 - 5,204 ppm.¹

Geology

Discontinuous, pinching and swelling (generally less than 1 foot thick, but as thick as 2 feet), subparallel veins, mostly of quartz, occur as replacement and open space-filling along bedding planes in a sequence of sedimentary and metasedimentary rock units. Veins contain pyrite, galena, sphalerite, and chalcopyrite, with minor amounts of gold and silver and sparse molybdenum. Pyrite is also disseminated along veins into wall rock (17).¹

Loading Area

First Shaft

Second Shaft

Unidentified Building (taken from above, looking down)

References

1. Mineral Appraisal of Coronado National Forest, Part 12, Santa Rita Mountains Unit, MLA11-94 (1994). SR 591-609
   http://repository.azgs.az.gov/sites/default/files/dlio/files/nid1813/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. Mike Bertram, 2/29/22
4. USGS Mineral Resources Data System - possibly using NAD72 (https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/map-commodity.html#home)