Carlota Mine, Top of the World, Miami-Inspiration Mining District, Globe-Miami Mining District, Gila County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Carlota Mine	Mine
Top of the World	- not defined -
Miami-Inspiration Mining District	Mining District
Globe-Miami Mining District	Mining District
Gila County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

A former underground Cu-Ag mine/deposit located in sec. 36, T1N, R13E, the center sec. 36, T1N, R13 (Inspiration 7.5 minute topo map), 2 miles SW of the Castle Dome (Pinto Valley) Mine, 1 mile WNW of Manitou Hill, and about 1¾ miles NNW of Top of the World, near the Pinal County line and near the SW corner of the Inspiration quadrangle, on National Forest land. Discovered in 1900. Produced 1929-1964. Operators included the Carlota Copper Co.; J. Alexander; C. Hirwin; John Duber; and Nielson and Company. The mine closed after 1929 and reopened in 1941. Leaching began in 1959. Drilling occurred during the period 1971-1974. Owned by the Homestake Production Co. (1971).

Mineralization is deposits of copper carbonates and silicates that occur in shattered rock along the Kelly (Kelley) Fault zone. At two places the rock has been sufficiently mineralized to constitute ore, one of these is the Carlota property. The ore zone is 762 meters long and 30.48 meters wide.

The Kelly fault zone has an average strike of N60W, and it dips 60º to 70ºNE. At the Carlota Mine and northwestward to the edge of the quadrangle, a diabase sill, intruded between Pinal schist and the base of the Apache group, forms the footwall of the fault zone, and dacite forms the hanging wall. In the vicinity of the mine, the dacite is underlain by Whitetail Conglomerate and hydrothermally altered Pinal Schist; but farther westward, it probably is underlain by Whitetail Conglomerate and Paleozoic limestone.

The copper minerals occur in brecciated diabase in the footwall of the fault zone. The orebody has no sharp boundaries, but grades into low-grade material in which the mineralized fractures are too narrow and too widely spaced to make ore. Its maximum dimensions at the outcrop are about 250 feet long by 100 feet wide.

Ore minerals are malachite, a little azurite, and various hydrated copper silicates. They occur in veinlets ranging from microscopic to as much as ½ inch (1.25 cm) thick, and also as crusts coating the breccia fragments. Where the breccia was especially open, the fragments are commonly covered by several, superimposed, botryoidal crusts composed of radially oriented, fibrous silicates that differ in color, texture, and optical properties. Some of the silicates have a vitreous luster and are so intimately fractured as to suggest solidification of a colloidal gel. Small botryoidal masses of black tenorite generally embedded in and veined by chrysocolla are present in many places. Silicate layers commonly are separated by thin black films that probably are also tenorite.

The copper minerals have clearly formed by direct deposition, either from true or from colloidal solutions that contained copper not derived from minerals originally present in the immediate host rock.

Workings included three levels in 1929, 280-foot depth.

Other Databases

Link to USGS MRDS:	10027439

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References