Fitting District – Mineral County, Nevada
You can drive to the entrance of the mine shaft.
High clearance 4WD vehicles will be required to access the claim.
Contact us for exact coordinates

The Dover Gold Mine is a sister mine to the Green Talc Gold Mine. The two mines are often referred to together in documentation as the Dover and Green Talc. Historically gold and copper were worked from what was initially reported as epithermal lode vein. Corundum (sapphire) is noted and found in quantities in the lower levels. The mine is a series of small prospect cuts and a large pit that has been opened around 2 timbered shafts. The Shafts are 1.5 compartment shafts with intact manways and haulage passages. The pit has been opened presumably to expose ore bodies and define lodes. It was originally thought that these mines were cut on epithermal vents. This may be true, in which case there are various veins and offshoots of the main vents that were being explored via drifts off the main shaft. There is good access to the mines via a county dirt road. It does require high clearance 4WD to access and may be subject to seasonal washouts. The road will need to be improved to facilitate larger dump trucks or heavy equipment. There is ample parking at the main mine camp for 5-7 vehicles. The Dover has been noted for corundum and gold. Corundum is also known as Sapphire. It is second only to diamonds in hardness. Gem quality samples have been reported and can be seen in a rock shop outside of Hawthorne. The gold in this mine is found in small particulates, most notably in columns of ore near quartz and oxidized copper deposits. Corundum is more prevalent at the Dover mine than the Green Talc mine. The material can be broken out by hand and then cut for gems or other commercial uses. Gold will be processed from this mine by chemical separation. The gold being too small to be recovered by conventional methods. There are no buildings or resources of note on the claim. The roads to the claim continue past the Dover Mine and up to the Green Talc Property. There are no resources available on the claim, water, shade and other amenities will need to be addressed. This claim should be considered for miners with some advanced knowledge of processing and separation. It is likely there will be a Notice of Operation required to profitably extract gold from the property. This claim could be utilized under Casual Use by small miners who are looking to work the Corundum deposits inside the mine. This work would be done by hand and not require permitting. The gold at the Dover Mine is not free milling and would be difficult if not impossible to separate without chemicals and mechanized processing methods.

From a 1937 report,

The fitting district comprises an area roughly 16 miles long and 6 miles wide in the southeast end of the Gillis Range in central Mineral County. The most recent mining development in this region is the production of andalusite rock from an unusual deposit on the southern flank of the Gillis Range. This is the only commercial occurrence of andalusite in Nevada.

The Dover group of three unpatented claims owned by B.H. Donnelly of Hawthorne is 5 miles east of Hawthorne, the nearest shipping point. The property is known as the Donnelly Mine.

Andalusite rocks was discovered by Donnelly in this area in 1929. In 1936, the property was leased to the Tillotson Clay Co. of Los Angeles for a 3-year period. Six men are employed at the property, and the production up to October 1936 was 450 tons of andalusite rock. The material is shipped to the Tillotson Clay Co. plant at Los Angeles for the manufacture of refractories.

Development work includes a 1 1/2-compartment vertical shaft 50 feet deep, two open-cuts, and a number of surface trenches. Workings comprise a total of 200 feet. The largest open-cut at the west end of the deposit is 30 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 15 feet deep. The shaft has been sunk near this cut, and a crosscut 56 feet long has been driven from the bottom of this shaft. Both shaft and crosscut are in andalusite rock. About 2,500 feet to the east of the shaft the second open-cut has exposed the andalusite for a width of 25 feet, a length of 20 feet, and a depth of 12 feet.

Equipment on the property includes an Ingersoll Rand Imperial Type 14 portable compressor, and Essex geared hoist driven by a gasoline engine, and a blacksmith shop. Hoisting is done with 1,000-pound capacity bucket.

The andalusite formation strikes approximately east and west. Near the shaft the andalusite rock is covered with a mantle of surface debris and clay up to 12 feet thick. The clay and surface debris are traversed with seams of gypsum.

In addition to andalusite, the rock contains gold, corundum (sapphire), quartz, sericite, and probably a little dumortierite. There is considerable variation of the mineral constituents in the rock. Corundum predominates in some specimens, while in others andalusite is the most abundant mineral. After the material is mined it is hand-sorted into two grades, according to specific gravity and mineral constituents.

Insufficient work has been done to block out tonnage, but in all probability this deposit contains large reserves.[1]

A 1955 Radioactivity Scanning Report stated:

Green Talc Mine and Bismark Mine Mineral County, Nevada:

The Green Talc mine and the Bismark (Dover) mine are located 10 to 12 miles northeast of Hawthorne, Nevada. Mineralization is sillimanite, with the alumina minerals occurring as replacement along shear zones in metavolcanic rocks of Triassic age, meta-andesites, and meta-tuffs. The shear zones are recrystallized into schists. Dikes of dibase or basalt intrude the metavolcanics. Minor minerals are quartz, andalusite, corundum diaspore, halloysite, sericite, pyrophyllite, pyrite, hematite, epidote, and others in trace amounts~ The core material from the Green Talc mine showed a consistent low response of o.ooB percent to 0.003 percent u3 o8 equivalent. The Bismark core showed a more widely scattered low response.[2]

Access to the Mine: You can drive to the entrance of the mine shaft.
Tailings Present: 10,000-49,999 tons, Lots of iron stained quartz, galena, oxidized pyrite.
Entrance: Timbered
Mine Cut: Shaft
Depth / Length: 75-100'
Minerals in the Mine: Gold, Copper, Corundum
Foot Traffic in the Mine: Light
Last Worked: 1939

Federally Registered Mining Claim ID: NMC1141828