Deer Lodge County, Montana, USA. - Easy High clearance 4WD road directly to site.

The Sunshine Mine is a rare find. Set in the low hills of Montana in Deer Lodge County. A county made famous for its preservation of not only mining properties but the territorial Prison and many, many other buildings. The claim is a full 20 acre lode claim which encompasses all of the Sunshine Mine and the ancillary workings around it. As estimated, the gate system was built over the shaft in the mid-1990s and it’s in amazing shape. It completely secures the mine and allows access only to those who know the combination to the gate. The workshop/housing is in great shape and really could be habitable as is. At very least it’s a great place to get some shelter while working your claim. The workshop/house can be utilized and you can stay on site in support of your mining activities with an approved plan of operation. Thats something else that GRE can help with if needed. The claim is covered with thick pines and there is plenty of wood for construction or just for firewood. We noted some seasonal water a little lower, but nothing on the claim. As such you will have to either bring your own water or journey down to one of the many streams when you need a fill up. Because the claim is just outside of Philipsburg, you can expect similar weather. Spring, Summer and Fall are epic and ideal for working the claim with great temps not dipping much below 40 degrees at the worst and hitting highs of 90 degrees on the hottest summer days. Winter will be rough with snows and sub-zero temps. A snowmobile will be the only way in or out. This mine has been overlooked mostly due to the reporting of this as a Tungsten Mine, however, 1.8 oz. AU and 314 oz and AG doesn’t make a Tungsten mine. It did keep people from working it though. An easy 4WD road leads directly to the shaft. The tailings from the shaft are show some gold and a lot of silver with sheelite. Most of the site is on tailings. No high grade piles were found. The shaft has a solid gate that can be opened with combination (given to new claim owner). There are extensive workings underground, a 35? level cross cut drift, a drift at 50? and again at 200?. Over 1700? total reported workings. It was reported that 40 tons of silver ore was shipped to a smelter in 1910. The main mine workings are concentrated at the August inclined shaft, 210 feet deep, with drifts on the 35, 50 and 200 foot levels. The shaft is sunk on the vein for the first 100 feet and then extends into the footwall. About 40 tons of tungsten ore was removed from a small stope on the 200 foot level. The shaft and lower workings are inaccessible. Other work at the property consisted of bulldozer trenching, diamond drilling, and long-steel drilling.

The prospect is underlain principally by Hasmark, Red Lion, Maywood, and Jefferson formations. In general, they are limy in character and comprise a series of limestone, dolomite, shale, and some sandstone. The beds of the synclinal fold strike about N. 35° E. Diastrophism has further warped the beds into minor north-trending folds, and dips in the area range from 20° to 35° NW. Much of the outcrop area is covered by glacial debris and alluvium.

Sedimentary formations have been intruded and metamorphosed by several small granodiorite stocks, offshoots of the Philipsburg batholith. The Sunshine prospect lies directly between two of these intrusives. The sediments are cut by a number of diorite dikes.

The most important structural feature is the Tarlach reverse fault, which has 60 to 100 feet of vertical displacement. The fault strikes N. 50° to 70° E. and dips about 70° S. From the August shaft to the Jefferson-Maywood contact the fault is obscured by detritus and overburden. From the contact it may be traced 1,500 feet into Storm Lake valley, where it is obscured by glacial debris. The fault is marked by the outcrop of a massive quartz vein near the Tarlach shaft.

Fine-grained scheelite and tetrahedrite occur in quartz lenses along the Tarlach fault zone and in small quartz veins crossing the structure. The veins also contain small quantities of galena and sphalerite. Scheelite is disseminated as fine grains in limestone in the fault walls.

Four deposits outcrop in rough echelon pattern over a strike length of 4,000 feet; all are in limestone.

The easternmost vein, the Tarlach, outcrops for a length of 150 feet and is 4 to 8 feet wide, averaging 6 feet. It is a bedding plane lens of quartz and calcite with finely disseminated scheelite crystals. The lens dips 60° S.

The Cross vein west of the Tarlach is a limestone replacement deposit exposed only by an outcrop of a high-grade scheelite-bearing quartz lens at least 20 feet long and 3-1/2 to 4 feet wide.

Farther west, the narrow, steeply dipping Morrison vein is poorly exposed by three shallow pits. It is a relatively weak structure containing only a trace of scheelite.

The August vein on the west end of the fault zone is 2-1/2 to 5 feet wide. Scheelite and small quantities of sulfides are found in quartz-calcite veinlets in the fault zone. Mineralization is present as fine, evenly disseminated scheelite crystals; irregular coarse bands and clusters of scheelite; and a thin, dark limestone banding with scattered minute crystals of tetrahedrite. Scheelite is persistently and uniformly distributed on the 35 level. The vein pinches out in the shaft about 100 feet below the collar. On the 200 level the vein is composed of quartz lenses lying along the fault; a diorite dike follows the fault for much of its exposed length.

Two small ore lenses occur on the 200 level; one in the northeast drift is 50 feet long and extends 50 feet above and 20 feet below the level. Scheelite and tetrahedrite are generally confined to a quartz band 12 to 22 inches thick in a limonite shear zone. On the 200 level the vein follows the shear zone northeast of the shaft. Southwest of the shaft it is in the shear-zone footwall. In the raise the vein cuts across the zone, follows the footwall a short distance, and wedges out. A few feet higher another vein with sparse scheelite begins along the shear-zone hanging wall.

The Sunshine property has been drilled, trenched, and sampled extensively. The Jefferson limestone, near the Morrison vein, contained disseminated scheelite crystals a distance of 90 feet into the footwall of the Tarlach fault. Long steel was used to drill several holes 5 to 10 feet long and totaling 68 feet. Analyses of 10 samples showed values ranging from 0.05 to 0.3 percent W03. The August outcrop was sampled, and the weighted average of 16 assays was 0.3 percent W03 across an average width of 5.6 feet. Five diamond-drill holes indicated the vein to be similar in grade at depth. Although all cores showed scheelite, only one sample was assayed; it contained 0.3 percent W03 over a 5.6-foot length. Grab samples of 142 tons of ore averaged 0.6 percent W03 and 5.8 ounces AG per ton. Samples from the lower 25 feet of the raise and a small stope averaged 0.8 percent W03.

Long steel and diamond-drill holes were used to test the walls of the August workings. Between 18.6 and 23.9 feet, inclined hole 5 (-30°) intersected a vein estimated to contain about 1.0 percent W03. Horizontal hole 6 failed to cut similar structure.

Beneficiation tests of ore averaging 0.5 percent W03 and 5.18 ounces AG per ton gave the following results: Flotation recovered a high-grade silver concentrate averaging 1.88 ounces AU per ton, 314.6 ounces AG per ton, 5.8 percent PB, 1.9 percent CU, and 5.3 percent ZN. The tailings were sized, and the fine fraction was refloated to recover a low-grade scheelite concentrate averaging 13.2 percent W03 and 44.9 ounces AG per ton. The coarse fraction was tabled to obtain a high-grade scheelite product averaging 50.7 percent W03, 1.2 ounces AU, and 21.4 ounces AG per ton.