Castle Butte Mine, Temporal Gulch, Wrightson Mining District, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Castle Butte Mine	Mine
Temporal Gulch	Gulch
Wrightson Mining District	Mining District
Santa Cruz County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

‡Ref.: Schrader, F.C. & J.M. Hill (1915), Mineral deposits of the Santa Rita and Patagonia Mountains, Arizona, USGS Bull. 582: 237-239.

Keener, H. (1918) The Patagonia District: Arizona Mining Journal, June, 1918, p. 42-43.

Keith, Stanton B. (1975), Arizona Bureau of Mines Bull. 191, Index of Mining Properties in Santa Cruz County Arizona: 89 (Table 4).

Niemuth, N.J. & K.A. Phillips (1992), Copper Oxide Resources, AZ Dept. Mines & Min. Resources Open File Rept. 92-10: 16 (Table 1).

Arizona Bureau of Mines file data.

MRDS database Dep. ID file #10137302, MAS ID #0040230145.

A former underground Cu-Ag-Au mine located in West-central (N½N½N½) sec. 11, T.22S., R.15E. (Mount Wrightson 15 minute topo map), in the south end of the Wrightson District, 2 miles west of Patagonia, on a small western tributary of Temporal Gulch, at an elevation of about 4,200 feet, on National Forest land. It was located in 1879. Later relocated by A.J. Stockton, who named the property. Owned at times, or in part, by Stockton; the Castle Butte Mining Co. (1908-1909); the American Mining & Oil Co., Los Angeles, CA (1909); and, Miller & Sheerer.

The country rock is principally light-colored rhyolite, in general overlain and intruded by dark andesite, with which the deposits are associated.

The deposits are distributed in a fault or shear zone about 120 feet wide and trends N.68ºE. and dips steeply to the NNW. The middle part of the zone is occupied by a rhyolite fault block from 50 to 80 feet in width, which is flanked on each side by a thinner slice of the same rock with strong croppings. The deposits are contained mainly in the vein which bounds the main fault block on its south side, and of which the block forms the hanging wall. The vein dips 80º to 85º NNW. Besides the gange minerals, which are principally crushed rock, quartz, and gypsum, it contains epidote and secondary copper minerals, all more or less crushed. An iron and manganese streak occurs in the bottom of the gulch and is 1 inch average width and carries copper.

The vein is traceable to a point about ½ mile to the east, where it is opened on the east side of Temporal Gulch. Here it is represented at the surface by a 1½ inch veinlet of heavily manganiferous gypsum and quartz, which contains stringers of malachite and chrysocolla dipping 80ºS. The prevalent gangue mineral is quartz in the deeper workings and gypsum in the surface ores.

Workings include a 120 foot tunnel and several shafts, the deepest of which is about 80 feet, and open cut operations. The main shaft is 40 feet deep, and from the bottom extends to the drifts east and west on the vein. Workings at the east operation include an 80 foot shaft. This mine was worked since the 1880's and intermittently through 1918. It produced some 100 tons of ore averaging about 2.5 oz. Ag/T, 10% Cu, and 0.1 oz. Au/T.

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Link to USGS MRDS:	10137302

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