Gold & Silver Mining Exploration Company
he Kit Carson Silver Exploration Properties
The Kit Carson Silver Project is presently comprised of approximately 411 acres, located 2 miles southwest of Humboldt, and about 10 miles southeast of Prescott, in Yavapai County, Arizona. It is accessed from Arizona Highway 69 by Iron King Road, an unpaved all weather road running southwest from Humboldt, Arizona to the property.
The silver project includes 24 unpatented lode mining claims totaling approximately 400 acres and a 50% undivided interest in the mineral rights to the Lady Alde patented lode mining claim (approximately 11 acres). The unpatented mining claims are located on land administered by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The Project is in the Big Bug Mining District, and three of the Company’s mines at this property have been mined in the past for precious and base metals: Lookout, Kit Carson and Lady Alde. The Company’s property currently includes approximately 3,000 feet on the Silver Belt – McCabe Vein System, 6,000 feet on the Kit Carson Vein System and 3,000 feet on the Lady Alde Vein System.
The Lookout Silver Mine was operated as recently as 1979, but has only been worked to a depth of 200 feet. The Company intends to begin exploration by surface geochemical sampling along the three above-referenced vein systems. Any anomalies encountered would be evaluated as potential drill targets.
The Kit Carson Silver Project is located between two major past producing mines. Adjoining the northeast end of the project area is the Iron King Mine, which produced gold, silver, lead and zinc for a Phelps Dodge predecessor until the late 1960’s. Adjoining the opposite (southwest) end of the Kit Carson Silver Project is the Gladstone – McCabe Gold Mine, which was last operated by Magma (later BHP) in the 1980’s. A major part of the Company’s rationale for acquiring Kit Carson Silver was the prospect that the rich gold and silver deposits at Iron King and Gladstone- McCabe continued onto the Company’s property, which was only mined to shallow depths.
Regional Geology
The Kit Carson Silver Project is located in the Northern Bradshaw Mountains of Yavapai County, Arizona. There are pre-Cambrian stratified rocks, largely assigned to the Big Bug Group of the Yavapai Series that total approximately 20,000 feet in thickness. These rocks consist of volcanic, volcaniclastic, and some sedimentary rocks that have been metamorphosed to the green schist facies. Higher-grade metamorphic rocks are present adjacent to the younger plutonic rocks.
The Big Bug Group is divided into three formations: (1) the Green Gulch Volcanics, which are west of the Kit Carson Silver Project area and consist of a basal dark-gray slate overlain by pillow and amygdaloidal mafic flows that contain intertounging rhyolitic rocks and mixed rhyolitic and mafic tuffaceous beds; (2) the Spud Mountain Volcanics (which underlay most of the Kit Carson Silver Project area) which constitutes the middle formation, is divided into a lower unit and an upper unit. The lower unit is dominated by bedded andesitic – rhyolitic breccia’s with coarse – graded bedding suggesting subaqueous pyroclastic flows. The upper unit is dominated by bedded andesitic and rhyolitic tuffaceous sediments that intertongue with the lower part of the overlying Iron King Volcanics, the youngest formation; and (3) the Iron King Volcanics, which are east of the Kit Carson Silver Project area and are a thick sequence of pillow and amygdaloidal mafic flows containing interbeds of sedimentary rock, including ferruginous cherts and small amounts of rhyolitic flows and tuffs.
Intruded into the Big Bug Group Precambrian rocks are masses of Tertiary granodiorite, which outcrop immediately west of the Gladstone – McCabe Gold Mine, just to the west of the Kit Carson Silver Project area. Also outcropping to the west of the Lady Alde Silver Mine is gabbro of Precambrian age, which may represent sills of mafic magma injected during the accumulation of the thick sequences of mafic volcanics.
Iron King Mine
The Iron King Mine is adjacent to the northeast portion of the Kit Carson Silver Project. The Iron King deposit is in andesitic tuffaceous rocks of the upper unit of the Spud Mountain Volcanics. Iron King produced, during the period from 1907 until 1964, a total of 616,493 ounces of gold, 18,494,491 ounces of silver, 125,375 tons of lead, 367,569 tons of zinc and 9,551 tons of copper. This would amount to $2.6 Billion of production at January 2011 commodity price levels. It was operated by Shattuck Denn Corp. (a Phelps Dodge predecessor) from 1942 until 1968, the year in which the mine closed. The average grade of ore mined was 0.123 ounces of gold and 3.69 ounces of silver per ton, 2.50 percent lead, 7.34 percent zinc and 0.19 percent copper.
The Iron King Ore deposit consists of 12 veins arranged en echelon, striking N 22 degrees E and dipping 71 degrees NW. In plain view, each vein extends farther to the north than the adjacent vein to the east; the north end of the veins plunges northward. The width of the veins ranges from 1 to 14 feet, and the lengths are hundreds of feet. The veins consist of fine-grained massive sulfide containing pyrite, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and tennantite, held together by a gangue of ankerite, quartz, sericite and residual chlorite. The north ends of the veins are almost exclusively quartz.
All of the veins are zoned and all in a similar manner. The north end of each one consists of massive quartz having sparse pyritic disseminations and ramifying veinlets. The quartz is commonly fine-grained, compact, gray to greenish in color, and almost chalcedonic in appearance. Locally, white bull quartz is associated as irregular patches or as vein like masses cutting the finer-grained type. The quartz has a sharp contact with the massive sulphide. This contact trends obliquely across the vein in a northerly direction and is more nearly vertical than the vein in cross section. In places the quartz contains sufficient gold and silver to be ore, and it may have a slight concentration of more granular galena near the contact with massive sulphides.
South of the quartz the veins are massive sulphide in which sphalerite and galena are the dominant ore minerals. The highest content of sphalerite plus galena commonly occurs some distance south of the quartz zone. Closely spaced assays show that in each of several veins the zone of higher lead and zinc content begins as a narrow stringer on the footwall of the vein and gradually migrates northward to the hanging wall, duplicating the pattern of the transition to the quartz masses at the north ends of the veins. In general, from the quartz southward the content of galena and sphalerite increases gradually to a maximum and then decreases gradually farther toward the south. There is a complimentary increase in pyrite content toward the south as the lead and zinc content decreases. The pyrite at the south end of the veins is more granular and commonly has a characteristic cubic form.
Farther south, the massive sulphide character of the veins grades into zones of quartz-pyrite stringers separated by thin schist partings containing granular, disseminated pyrite.
There are no major changes of the veins in depth. The zoning is similar in each vein on all levels, and the mineralogical and structural character of the veins is about the same on the upper and lower levels. However, the lead – zinc content of several of the more easterly veins diminishes on the 700 and 800 levels, but may increase with greater depth as in several of the other veins.
Workings included 2 shafts 750 feet apart at 435 feet and 225 feet deep, respectively; later, 7 shafts. Shafts 6 and 7 were hoisting shafts. The earlier shafts were used for ventilation (Nos. 1 & 5), emergency exits (No. 2) or were caved (Nos. 3 & 4). The No. 6 shaft is a two-compartment shaft, which extends below the 1200 level and was the primary working shaft. There were eleven levels, extending to about 1,140 feet below the collar of the shaft. The overall mining operation was some 2,600 feet deep vertically.
The Iron King Mine and the nearby Humboldt Smelter are currently included in a Superfund environmental cleanup site. None of the Company’s Kit Carson Silver Project area is included in the Superfund Site.
Mineral Deposits of Late Cretaceous or Early Tertiary Age
The mineral deposits of Late Cretaceous or early Tertiary age are largely gold – silver veins that are clustered about the granodiorite stocks of the same age that are exposed west of the Kit Carson Silver Project area. These are typical fissure veins, straight and narrow with well – defined walls. Quartz is the dominant gangue mineral, and it shows drusy and comb structures. Ankerite occurs in many veins, and barite is common where silver is the important precious metal; they include arsenopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite and ruby silver.
The Mines of the Silver Belt-McCabe Vein
The Silver Belt-McCabe Vein runs for over two miles from immediately west of the Iron King Mine southwest to the Gladstone-McCabe Mine. In fact, The Silver Belt-McCabe vein has been traced as a continuous zone for about 14,000 feet (4.2 km) from a point about 1,500 feet WNW of the Iron King Mine southwestward. The strike ranges from N.65ºE. In the southern sector to N.30ºE. In the northern sector; the dip ranges from 70ºNW to 80ºSE; and the width ranges from 6 to 15 feet. The Kit Carson Silver Project includes approximately 3,000 feet of this vein system between the Iron King Mine and the Silver Belt Mine. An additional 3,000 feet on this vein between the Arizona National Mine and the Gladstone-McCabe Mine are also included in the Company’s land package. The Company’s total footage on this vein is approximately 6,000 feet.
The vein is almost entirely within the breccia facies of the Spud Mountain volcanics. Chlorite and probably some sericite, lying with their basal sections essentially parallel to the strike of the vein, characterize the fissile, sheared zone comprising the vein; whereas the wall rocks, especially those on the hanging wall (west side), are foliated but not fissile, and are characterized by actinolitic hornblende
The Silver Belt-McCabe vein system has been described by several authors. Silver and lead characterized the Silver Belt deposit on the northeasterly portion of the vein. In the Arizona National Mine, next to the southwest from Silver Belt, the content of lead and silver was lower than that in the Silver Belt, and the ore contained zinc and iron, chiefly as sphalerite and pyrite. In the Company’s Lookout Mine, next to the southwest from Arizona National, the ore was complex and contained silver, gold, lead, zinc, iron and copper. The Gladstone-McCabe mine at the south end of the vein also contained complex sulfide ore; the content of iron, copper and gold was higher than in the Lookout Mine, but the content of silver and lead was lower.
Historic production from the Silver Belt mine is reported to have a value of $330,000 and, from the Arizona National, $300,000. This was during the era when the gold price was $20 per ounce, so at a 2011 gold market price of $1,400 per ounce, these production figures would be approximately $23,000,000 and $21,000,000, respectively.
The Gladstone – McCabe Mine produced gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc having a value of about $3,000,000 during this same historic period (or approximately $210,000,000 at 2011 commodities prices). The average grade was 1.5 ounces gold and 10 ounces silver per ton, 2 percent copper, 2.1 percent lead and 4.7 percent zinc.
The age of formation of the Silver Belt-McCabe vein has not been definitely determined. It is generally considered to be Late Cretaceous or Early Tertiary based on radiometric dating of the granodiorite stock to the west of the project area.
Gladstone-McCabe Mine
The Gladstone-McCabe Mine adjoins the Kit Carson Silver Project to the southwest. It was discovered in 1866 and mining started in the early 1870’s. The mine was reopened in 1898 and operated by the Ideal Leasing Co. until closed in 1913. The mine was reopened and ultimately closed in 1922. Thereafter the mine was reopened and un-watered in early 1934 by H. Fields & Associates and closed again in 1937. The most recent mining was by Stan West and Magma (now BHP) in 1988-1989.
Mineralization is a vein deposit with a tabular ore body hosted in the Spud Mountain Volcanics. The vein is in amphibolitic schist intruded by dikes of rhyolite porphyry and a distance farther SW, by a stock of quartz diorite. The vein averages 3½ feet wide with 5 ore shoots, each 200 to 500 feet long. Ore control was faulting and shearing. Ore concentration was oxidation and enrichment at near surface. No alteration was noted.
The vein is a series of lenses which are characterized by band and ribbon structure, the metallic contents being largely confined to the center of the vein. Open vugs lined with large crystals of quartz and arsenopyrite are common. Arsenopyrite with pyrite and chalcopyrite carry the values, which are largely gold with some silver. Galena is sparingly present.
Between the 2 shafts, a 20-foot wide dike of rhyolite porphyry intersects the schist with a northerly strike. The vein strikes N.54ºE. & dips 79ºSE. The ore contains quartz that is distinctly banded with sulfides in the center. Area structures include veins parallel to foliation in Precambrian rocks for the most part, which trends N25E.
Workings include the McCabe shaft (900 feet deep) and the Gladstone shaft (1,100 feet deep), 800 feet apart, plus several miles of workings.
The Kit Carson Silver Mine and Vein
The Company’s Kit Carson Silver Mine is a silver – gold – copper – lead mine on the Kit Carson vein, which is located about 1,500 feet west of the Silver Belt-McCabe vein. The mineral deposit was discovered in 1897 and was mined from 1907 until 1926.
The Kit Carson vein strikes parallel to the Silver Belt-McCabe vein, but has an opposite dip to the east and is hosted in the Lower Unit of the Spud Mountain Volcanics. The Kit Carson vein was traced on the surface for about 4,000 feet, but is somewhat longer, for its northern extent is overlain by the gravel of the Hickey formation in Lonesome Valley. The vein has not been adequately explored. It appears to resemble the Silver Belt-McCabe vein in structure, alteration, and character of the mineralized zone.
The vein consists of a sheared zone as much as 5 feet wide, characterized by fissile, sericitic rock in which local stringers of comb quartz and box work, possibly after ankerite, were observed. Mineralization is a 2 to 4 foot wide vein with well-defined wall rock. Ore control was faulting and shearing. Ore concentration was oxidation at near surface. Alteration was minor silicification. The Kit Carson vein is west of the Silver Belt-McCabe vein and dips N.30ºE. And dips steeply SE. Area structures include veins that parallel regional foliation, which trends N30E.
Workings include 8 shafts and prospect pits.
The Lady Alde Vein
Commencing on the patented Lady Alde lode mining claim and running to the northeast, roughly parallel to the Kit Carson Vein System is the Lady Alde mineralized area, which includes several mine shafts and prospect pits in the vicinity of the contact between northeast striking masses of Precambrian gabbro and the lower unit of the Spud Mountain Volcanics.
THIS IS A VERY BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THIS EXPLORATION PROPERTY. DETAILED OVERVIEWS ARE BEING PREPARED BY AN INDEPENDENT GEOLOGIST ALONGSIDE THE COMPANY’S MANAGEMENT. CERTAIN INFORMATION HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY EXCLUDED FROM THIS OVERVIEW AS IT IS VIEWED AS “COMMERCIALLY SENSITIVE” FOR VARIOUS REASONS.
GNCC CAPITAL, INC. HAS OBTAINED THE CERTAIN OF THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION FROM THE PUBLIC RECORDS OF STATE GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES AND IS SUBMITTING THEM IN THE INTEREST OF FULL DISCLOSURE. UNDUE IMPORTANCE SHOULD NOT BE GIVEN TO THESE MATERIALS, AS THEY ARE OF AN HISTORICAL NATURE AND MAY PERTAIN TO MINING PROPERTIES IN ADDITION TO THOSE PRESENTLY CONTROLLED BY GNCC CAPITAL, INC. THESE MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY BY GNCC CAPITAL, INC. AS TO THEIR CONTENTS.
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