Five groups of mining claims in Nevada with high grade gold-silver deposits plus potential for large scale low grade resources. I am offering the full portfolio of claims with owner financing so the buyer can begin exploration/mining without investing too much and will have full rights to the claims while payments are being made.
Adams: Humboldt County
Aurum: White Pine County
Black Prince: Lincoln County
Gold Boulder: Humboldt County
Ledbetter: Nye County
All the properties have direct road access
Five groups of mining claims in Nevada with high grade gold-silver deposits plus potential for large scale low grade resources. I am offering the full portfolio of claims with owner financing so the buyer can begin exploration/mining without investing too much and will have full rights to the claims while payments are being made.
Adams Mine
Workings at the mine are in large quartz vein systems hosted by metasedimentary rock such as phyllites and slates of triassic age. The main activity is on an E-W trending vein averaging 8-12 feet wide and dipping to the South. The vein hosting the ore body pinches and swells along strike forming large pods up to 20 feet wide with rich pockets of free gold in quartz. Genetically, the vein system is a fissure-filling type breccia with additional parallel veins traceable on the surface. The vein is also reported to be traceable along strike to the east for 3000 feet. The orebody itself is hematitic brecciated quartz with local rich pockets of free gold in quartz associated with an igneous contact which perhaps drove some or all of the orebody genesis. Few sulfides are present with mostly oxide minerals found in association with the mineralization and ore body.
Aurum
The property lies along Silver Canyon which cuts east-west through walls of steep dipping sedimentaries ranging in age from Pre-Cambrian up through Cambrian quartzites, shales, and limestones. A strong regional fault fissure, well mineralized, shows along the base of the range with Mississippian limestones resting unconformably on Proterozioc schists and slates. Along the fissure at least three competent beddings have been mined in the past. All sediments are cut by numerous dikes and intrusives mostly of quartz-porphyry type but varying from very early to more recent geologic periods. The later ones on major faults appear to serve as channels for ascending mineralization. An interesting feature of the structure of the area is the fact that high copper-silver ores are found high up in the canyon as replacement in a 30-50 foot calcareous bed in the Cambrian shales. This corresponds to the theory of developing the first limestone above the Cambrian quartzites. It is believed that the original outcrop of the higher grade copper ores may be faulted or a slumped section which belongs about 80 feet stratigraphically above the harder and lower grade bed actually developed for 200 feet down dip. Lower workings: High grade silver-lead ores were sorted from several hundred feet of workings in three or more competent limestone horizons. The beds show 2 to 8 feet of oxidized replacement minerals in Mississippian limestone. Combined Metals reported collecting samples from the ore faces running as high as 90 oz/ton Ag, 3.4% Pb, and 1.1% Zn. An interesting feature is the structural relationship to the heavy mineralized frontal fissure which underlies these shallow workings.
Combined Metals identified this area as having the most resource potential.
Upper workings: These workings are located one mile west up Silver Canyon. Ore averaging 7% Cu, 5 oz/ton Ag, and .025 oz/ton Au was mined from a 30 foot calcareous shale bed which dip 10-16 degrees west. A 500 foot adit was driven 70 feet below the outcrop which exposed the continuous of the ore down dip for about 300 feet. The tunnel cut a 14-20 foot wide ore bed running 2% Cu and 1.5 oz/ton Ag. It is mineralized by an east-west fault fissure containing quartz porphyry.
Combined Metals estimated the Upper Workings to contain: 2500 tons of 4% Cu, 3 oz/ton Ag, and .015 oz/ton Au in the oxidized surface of the outcrop 25,000 tons of sulphide ore containing 2.23% Cu and 1.5 oz/ton Ag above the 500 foot adit. They noted: “The 2500 tons of higher grade surface outcrop is estimated separately as it is in an oxidized shale bed which appears to have been faulted from its true position. The outcrop is soft; it can be mined by surface methods and is easily concentrated. The 25,000 tons of lower grade is sulphide ore in a hard silicified carbonaceous shale with thin beds of quartzite; it is only partially developed.
The ore bed has been exposed for a distance of 200 feet down a 20 degree dip to level of Tunnel No. 2 at 70 feet below the outcrop. Using mining assumptions as to the probable dimensions of the undeveloped ore, the evidence appears to warrant a block of 100 feet wide by 15 feet thick or 12,500 tons per 100 feet of length down dip, using 12 cubic feet per ton of ore in place. This ore body, as well as the probability of a higher grade one lying some 80 to 100 feet above, should be further explored. In 1954, after the previously discussed exploration results.
Black Prince
Gold and silver mineralization occurs in a limestone replacement vein of hematite stained quartz nodules, oxidized pyrite, and pyrolusite. An altered granite porphyry dike parallels the fissure footwall which is also mineralized. The vein varies from 15 to 36 feet in width with values said to increase with depth. Altera Resources completed 15 drill holes in 1981 with 12 intersecting the Black Prince vein. A drill hole yielded an average 12.4 ft true thickness of the vein and 3.4 oz/ton silver. Values are said to increase with depth. The vein is relatively continuous along the strike for 2600 feet with a 51 degree dip. Altera estimated “probable reserves” of 40,000 tons .03 oz/ton gold and 8 oz/ton silver within 300 feet of the surface. Combined Metals blocked over 20,000 tons in the Black Prince shaft assaying .06 oz/ton Au, 7.2 oz/ton Ag, .4% Pb, 1.6% Zn, and 9.3% Mn. Their one drill hole reached what is believed a thrust fault at about 900 but the hole was lost in the fault zone. They believed a favorable ore horizon may lie just below the fault.
Exploration in the mid-2000s found exposures of epithermal silver-gold veins range from 2 to 18 m wide and select samples of the veins grade in excess of 5 g/t gold and 600 g/t silver. Three new veins were discovered.
Ledbetter
Gold mineralization occurs in veins associated with a Tertiary rhyolite porphyry dike placed along a fault in densely welded tuff of the Toiyabe Quartz Latite. The tuffs are an intercaldera deposit, also Tertiary.
The gold- and silver-bearing veins, as much as 2 feet thick, contain quartz, gouge, and a small amount of pyrite. Noteworthy is the lack of sulfide minerals occurring with precious metals. The rhyolite porphyry and welded tuff, in contact with the veins, are silicified and potassically altered. Enclosing country rock is also altered and contains quartz- and adularia-filled fractures.
While gold content at the surface is limited to narrow veins in the welded tuff, rocks at depth with more porosity, may host a large disseminated deposit. This geologic model would be analogous to the Round Mountain deposit. The lack of sulfides suggested to the company that gold mineralization may have been syngenetic with the rhyolite porphyry, and the area was explored to detect additional gold occurrences associated with the rhyolite intrusive episode.
Processing material on the dump is recommending and could turn to a very profitable operation. Opening old workings for mining of the veins is also likely to produce. At depth more porous rocks may host a large disseminated gold deposit.
The Adams Mine
The USGS notes “the mine produced approximately 324 oz of gold between 1933 and 1935 and 469 oz of gold and 223 oz of silver in 1936. U.S. Bureau of Mines records show 1,305 oz of gold and 418 oz of silver were produced from the mine between 1939 and 1941”. The last operators of the mine planned to reopen with year-round operation at time of the last examination in 1984 by way of an in situ leach operation. Richard Potter and the Potter family bought the mine from the Adams family and were attempting to reopen the upper workings and generally outfit the mine for production through the winter months. The family were also dozing and trenching in an attempt to extend the upper vein system to the west in hopes of starting another adit lower on the mountain and coming from the west. I don't believe further development occurred.
Aurum
Silver-lead ores were discovered in the Aurum district in 1871. Larger development began on the Luckey Deposit (the name given to the property area) with the construction of a stamp mill in the 1880s. Copper was first mined at the upper workings in 1913. Production records are incomplete but state approximately 1,000 tons of ore was produced averaging 7% Cu, 5 oz/ton Ag, and .02 oz/ton Au.
Little development took place after World World 1 before Combined Metals Inc acquired the property in 1951. Total development in the Upper Workings consists of trenching, stoping, and two tunnels totaling 750 feet. The Lower Workings have been developed by extensive shallow workings in the limestone on the hanging wall of a major fault.
Combined Metals performed extensive sampling, trenching, and drilling in the 1950s.
Black Prince
Silver discoveries were made in Pioche in 1862 and mining along high grade fissure veins through 1875 produced $16,000,000 at metal prices of the time. The limestone replacement deposits at the Black Prince were located in 1905 by the Prince Consolidated Company which constructed the inclined shaft and performed most of the mining. Total production figures are not known. Combined Metals Reduction Company acquired the property in the 1920s. For at least two decades it appears to have lain idle until the 1940s during which drilling and surface sampling were performed. In 1981 Altera Resources Inc. acquired the Black Prince and initiated an exploration program which drilled 15 holes.
Ledbetter
The Ledbetter Canyon Mine was discovered and staked in 1923 and purchased by A. H. Ferir in 1927. Ferir milled 400 tons of ore but by 1937 the mine was idle due to his age and ill health. All the workings on the claims which include two adits, one shaft, and numerous trenches and shallow pits are from this period.
The dump representing about 200 feet of drifting is said to contain 0.4-0.5/oz in gold. This is likely because the remoteness of the mine made transporting ore for processing was costly so only selected high grade ore was shipped. The property was leased by Homestake mining in 1984 who believed it could hold potential for a bulk tonnage low grade gold deposit.
Full purchase price is $40,000 offered with owner financing. $1000 down with the balance carried over 7 years at 4%, $533/month.
