Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern CountiesFairbanks, Harold W. (Harold Wellman)
History
Old Mines of Southern California: Desert-Mountain-Coastal Areas Including the Calico-Salton Sea Colorado River Districts and Southern Counties
Fairbanks, Harold W. (Harold Wellman)
Geology -- California, Southern; Mines and mineral resources -- California, Southern
The Oro Grande Mining District is located immediately east of the
Southern California Railroad, at the town of Oro Grande. It is commonly
supposed to embrace all the mines for some miles around, though, in fact
each group of mines or hills has been given a separate name, but as
these so-called districts are mostly without organization, all the
claims and mines will be considered under one head.
The geology of the district about Oro Grande is complex, the formations
being uplifted, greatly faulted, and broken, besides the intrusion of
dikes of felsitic rock, diorite, and quartz porphyry. I had not
sufficient time at my disposal when at Oro Grande to study out the
somewhat intricate geological problem, and will describe the region in
general terms.
Commencing at the town of Oro Grande, which stands on the bank of the
Mojave River, the country rises in a gentle slope toward the hill half a
mile distant; gently rolling hills are reached, which in turn give place
to more rugged masses, and finally to a rough mountainous area, the
hillsides being almost precipitous. The lowlying country about the base
of the hills is mostly made up of schistose micaceous rocks, a quartzose
mica schist predominating. The first hills of any consequence are
eruptive, mostly a light-greenish felsite and a coarse-grained
porphyritic rock. Beyond are prominent hills of a dense, hard quartzite
resting upon a crystalline limestone, the highest hills being made up of
practically the same materials (quartzite and limestone), in part
schistose with some mica schist, jasper, and many intrusive dikes of all
the previously mentioned eruptives, prominent among them being diorite
of dark-green color.
THE EMBODY MINE.
Within half a mile of the town, and on a lower spur or ridge that makes
down from the hills, is located the Embody Mine, which, during the
excitement at this locality in 1890, attracted considerable attention.
The gold-bearing material is quartzose, micaceous rock of somewhat
friable character. The deposit, as I may term it, has the appearance of
being an impregnation without definite form.
Were it not for the fact that the shoot of gold rock makes across the
strike of the schists, it would resemble some bedded deposits found at
the Homestake, Black Hills, South Dakota, where micaceous schists have
been silicified and hornblende schists metamorphosed to chloritic
schists, the whole carrying gold across a broad zone 1,600 feet in width
and 6,000 feet in length. The gold occurs in shoots or vein-like zones,
without defining lines of any character. At the Embody Mine, too, little
development has been done to make any positive prediction as to the
future of the mine. The formation strikes northeast and southwest, and
dips 70° southeast.
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