Mount Pisgah prospect (Higdon prospect), Pisgah Mountain, Fannin County, Georgia, USAi

Regional Level Types
Mount Pisgah prospect (Higdon prospect)	Prospect
Pisgah Mountain	Mountain
Fannin County	County
Georgia	State
USA	Country

The Mount Pisgah or Higdon copper prospect is located on .Mount Pisgah, 9 miles in an air line southwest of Copperhill, Tennessee, and 1.2 miles southwest of Higdons Store. It is reported that the outcrops were discovered in the late fifties, and prospecting has been done at intervals since. In 1917 the property was secured by the Flower Mining Company, John Baker, manager.

The prospects are near the top of the mountain, which rises about 800 feet above the level of Little Fightingtown Creek at Higdons Store. If the deposit proves large enough to work, a tunnel put in on the lower slope of the mountain would get 500 or 600 feet of ore overhead.

The principal working is a tunnel in the north slope of the mountain about 300 feet below the summit. The direction of the tunnel is about S.30°E. One hundred and fifty feet from the entrance is a wintze, and the tunnel continues farther, but is blocked by timbers. At the mouth of the tunnel the schistosity is considerably twisted, but the average strike is east, with a dip of 45° to the north. The country rock is the usual mica schist and graywacke of the Great Smoky formation. The ore on the dump is dark colored, finely crystalline schist made up of quartz, biotite, garnet, plagioclase feldspar, and muscovite, in approximate order of abundance, together with stringers and bunches of sulphides, some of which are several inches thick. Chalcopyrite is the principal ore mineral, with pyrrhotite in subordinate quantity. The sulphides make up only a small proportion of the mass of rock.

Up and around the slope southeast of the tunnel is an open cut or caved tunnel. The rock strikes N.40°E. and dips 45°NW. The sulphides have weathered from the exposed material, but slight stains indicate copper. Farther southeast, on the summit of the east spur of the mountain, are two shafts, in an area of bare rock striking east.

The rock on the dumps is a much crumpled schist, showing copper stains, and the fresher portions carry finely crystalline sulphides. It is thickly studded with garnets, averaging 2 millimeters in diameter. A thin section shows biotite, chlorite, garnet, quartz, and muscovite, with finely divided pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite between the grains of other minerals. There are also a few crystals of a mineral believed to be epidote.

On the south slope of the ridge is another shaft, entirely filled with water when examined. There is an open cut extending 30 feet south of the shaft, showing almost fresh rock within a foot of the surface. All of the rock is much stained by copper, and shows some fine chalcopyrite. A "vein" zone, about 6 feet thick, is cut by stringers of nearly pure chalcopyrite as much as an inch thick, but the mass of the vein material does not differ greatly from the country rock. Here the rock is much twisted, with average strike about N.30°E., and dips steeply southeast.

The deposit does not belong to the Ducktown type, as there is no indication of limestone, and the heavy calcium silicate minerals, excepting garnet, are lacking. On account of the great preponderance of chalcopyrite among the ore minerals, it must be considered primarily a copper, and not a sulphur, deposit.

The distribution of test pits shows neither a transverse vein nor one following the schistosity. Apparently the deposit consists of an irregularly mineralized zone in the graywacke-schist.