Black Warrior Creek Geology:
The drainage above the Black Warrior Creek claim hosts lode gold and silver at the Overlook Mine about seven miles up the creek, and additional historic placers on Mule Creek and Magnolia Creek. The resource was initially discovered just after the year 1900 when high grade ore was found around the Overlook Mine on the Overlook Vein, presumably followed up drainage by prospectors branching off of the Middle Fork of the Boise River and through the claims.
Shear zones and quartz veins with sulfides were found to host the gold and were being mined by 1914 in multiple locations in the vicinity of the Overlook Mine. The area was rich enough to justify construction of multiple arrastres and stamp mills as well as a mile-long tramway to transport ore down the hill from the Overlook Mine for processing at the larger 10 stamp mill.
The general geology of the area is characterized by mostly Cretaceous biotite granodiorite on the claim and surrounding area pockmarked by Eocene granodiorite, Eocene andesite, Eocene rhyolite dikes and plugs, quaternary alluvium in the valley floor, Cretaceous leucocratic granite, and faults in the district with the most notable being the large roughly NNW trending Montezuma Fault up drainage. Mineralized rocks were mostly encountered as float/slopewash scattered throughout the area without a strong discernable pattern
Rock Creek Geology
The Rock Creek placers were initially “discovered by Lindeberg, Lindblom, and Brynetson in the fall of 1898… Gold was distributed throughout pay gravel that was only about 5 feet deep. The gold was mainly fine with a few rough nuggets. Semiangular scheelite occurred in the concentrates along with magnetite, limonite, and garnet. The part of the deposit in the main Rock Creek flood plain was as much as 300 feet wide on the No. 4 Above claim and an adjacent west bench claim. It was relatively shallow, about 5 to 12 feet deep, and was developed on hard schist bedrock where indentations and irregularities acted as riffles.” Total production from the Rock Creek placers is estimated to have been a 30,000 ounces of gold.
The main placers quoted above were closer to Lowman than this claim. This claim is higher up in elevation but benefits from the same circumstances that concentrated gold below and are closer to the source. The gravels are not as deep or wide as in the floodplain below which is good as there seemed to be relatively good pay gravel at the surface. Though the whole area and Rock Creek specifically are well known to have great gold, this claim seem to have been overlooked by the early prospectors.
The early placer operations worked out the enormous lower deposits near Lowman and did very well, however this claim is expected to be quite rich too since it is located directly down drainage from three close lode gold mines named the Golden Chariot, the Golden Cycle, and the Sloper Mine.
