Signal Mine group, Santa Maria Mining District (Planet Mining District; Swansea Mining District; Bill Williams Mining District), Buckskin Mountains, La Paz County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Signal Mine group	- not defined -
Santa Maria Mining District (Planet Mining District; Swansea Mining District; Bill Williams Mining District)	Mining District
Buckskin Mountains	Mountain Range
La Paz County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

‡Ref.: Bancroft, H. (1911), Reconnaissance of the ore deposits in northern Yuma County, Arizona, USGS Bull. 451: 62-65.

Weed, W.H. (1912-1913) The Copper Handbook, Vol. XII: 1079.

Tenney, J.B. (1928), The mineral industries of Arizona, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 125: 73.

Elsing, M.J. and Heineman, E.S. (1936) Arizona Metal Production, Arizona Bureau of Mines Bulletin 140: 104.

Harrer, C.M. (1964), Reconnaissance of Iron Resources in Arizona, US Bureau of Mines Information Circular 8236: 134-135.

Keith, Stanton B. (1978) State of Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology, Geological Survey Branch Bull. 192, Index of Mining Properties in Yuma County, Arizona: 174 (Table 4).

Niemuth, N.J. & K.A. Phillips (1992), Copper Oxide Resources, Arizona Department of Mines & Mineral Resources Open File Report 92-10: 9 (Table 1).

Arizona Department of Mineral Resources Swansea Copper Mine file.

Arizona Department of Mineral Resources northern Yuma area mines file.

MRDS database Dep. ID file #10027672, MRDS ID #M003777; and, Dep. ID #10283330, MAS ID #0040120464.

A former underground Cu-Fe-Ag-Au mine located in North-central sec. 32, T10N, R15W (Swansea 15 minute topo map), 23 miles NE of Bouse, on BLM-administered land. Location is approximate. Operated 1908 to 1944. Owned/operated at times, or in part, by the Signal Copper Co.; Clara Consolidated Gold & Copper Mining Co.; Swansea Consolidated Gold & Copper Mining Co.; Wilton-Grant Ores and Metals Co.; Swansea Arizona Mines Co.; Swansea Lease Inc.; Consolidated Arizona Smelting Co.; South Arizona Mines Co.; Clara-Swansea Mining Co.; E.C. Lane; American Smelting & Refining Co. (ASARCO); and, Swansea Development Co. Operated by Mr. John Challinor, Phoenix, AZ (1971).

Mineralization is a replacement deposit of oxidized copper ores, disseminated and in veinlets in several large, irregular, lensing, hematite replacement bodies, with some sulfides in depth, and mixed with quartz, chlorite and epidote. It is associated with low-angle detachment faulting. Orebodies are within and immediately above the micro-brecciated detachment surface; irregular hydrothermal replacement. The major part of this claim occupies a faulted block of country rock whose original position was to the SW and considerably higher than it is at present. Orebodies are in the basal section of the fault block of folded Paleozoic limestone and amphibolite schist along a fault zone on top of Precambrian gneissic rock. Later faulting and fracturing is evident and the sulfides have been introduced in small quantities into the crushed zones of the country rock and in small cross fissures in the gangue and ore. The ore zone is 27.43 meters long, 9.14 meters wide, with a depth to top of 0 meters, depth to bottom of 60.96 meters.

Workings include shaft operations to a depth of 121.92 meters, and extensive underground workings. On the Signal property there are six shafts, two inclined and four vertical. Known and prospected since the 1880's and produced intermittently, through 1944, some 352,000 tons of ore averaging about 3% Cu, 0.09 oz. Ag/T and minor gold.

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Link to USGS MRDS:	10027672

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