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Gossan Lead District

Past Producer in Carroll county in Virginia, United States with commodities Copper, Iron, Sulfur-Pyrite
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Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Commodities
  6. Materials information
  7. Alteration
  8. Host and associated rocks
  9. Nearby scientific data
  10. Geologic structures
  11. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  12. Mining district
  13. Bibliographic references
  14. General comments
  15. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10307220
Record type District
Current site name Gossan Lead District

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -80.9197, 36.7232 (WGS84)
Location accuracy 10000(meters)

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Carroll(county)

Virginia(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Galax(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Galax(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Winston-Salem(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Upper New(hydrologic unit)

Kanawha(hydrologic accounting unit)

Kanawha(hydrologic subregion)

Ohio(hydrologic region)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States Virginia Carroll

Comments on the location information

  • Location is for the Chestnut Creek segment of the Gossan Lead trend, in the approximate middle of the Gossan Lead district. The Gossan Lead district is a 28 km long northeast-trending belt of discontinuous massive sulfide deposits. The deposits occur in 10 principal segments. The two largest segments in terms of production are the Iron Ridge segment at the sourthwestern end of the trend, about 6 km north of Galax, Virginia, and the Betty Baker segment at the northeastern end of the trend, about 4 km south of Sylvatus, Virginia.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Copper Primary
Iron Primary
Sulfur-Pyrite Primary

Comments on the commodity information

  • The massive sulfide deposits at Gossan Lead were mined for supergene copper in the 1850's, for gossan iron from about 1880 until 1908, and for sulfur until 1976 (Gair and Slack, 1984)

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Pyrrhotite Ore
Chalcopyrite Ore
Sphalerite Ore
Pyrite Ore
Quartz Gangue
Actinolite Gangue
Tremolite Gangue
Biotite Gangue
Chlorite Gangue
Muscovite Gangue
Barite Gangue
Arsenopyrite Unknown
Galena Unknown

Alteration

  • (Local) Amphibolite Metamorphism

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Schist > Amphibole Schist
    Rock unit name Ashe Formation
    Rock description Ashe Formation
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Neoproterozoic

Nearby scientific data

(1) Ashe Formation - Biotite gneiss
ListMap

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure Local
Structure description Fries thrust sheet

Comments on the geologic information

  • The massive sulfide deposits of the Gossan Lead district occur within the late Proterozoic Ashe Formation. The Ashe Formation is a sequence of clastic metasedimentary rocks and interlayered amphibolite and other mafic rocks with a total thickness of 12 to 15 km. Stratigraphically above and below the horizon of the Gossan Lead, the country rocks are mainly pelitic shcist and quartz-feldspar granofels. The Ashe Formation in the district has been regionally metamorphosed to the amphibolite facies with development of parallel garnet and staurolite zones. The sulfide deposits are entirely within the garnet zone (Gair and Slack, 1984).

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Significant Yes

Mining district

District name Gossan Lead District

Comments on the production information

  • The exact size of the massive sulfide deposits in the Gossan Lead district is uncertain. Combined amounts of past production and remaining sulfide within 150 to 300 m of the surface have been estimated at 20 million tons. However, the volume of sulfide within 500 m of the surface may be 5 times to as much as 10 times greater than this (Gair and Slack, 1984).

Comments on development

  • The Iron Ridge segment or Great Outburst is about 2 km long and contains 3 major deposits -- Gossan Howard, Bumbarger-Iron King, and Huey. Together, the three deposits comprise about half of the mineable sulfide in the district. Mining was done exclusively by open pit methods at these deposits, except at Bumbarger where mining extended ungeround into the Iron King. These are the only deposits to have been mined for primary sulfides, and the only deposits worked since the mining of gossan iron ceased in 1908. The Gossan Howard pit was partially filled and graded in 1977. The Huey pit was flooded in 1980 (Gair and Slack, 1984).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit The massive sulfide deposits of the Gossan Lead form discontinuous lenses and layers distributed in a narrow northeast-southwest zone within the Ashe Formation, parallel to the strike of the country rock. The district is divided into ten segments, with sulfide deposits occuring in one or more lenses along strike from one another, especially in the major segments. The principal segments are (from southwest to northeast) Iron Ridge, Chestnut Creek, Copperas Hill, Sarah Ellen, Wildcat, Cranberry, Little Reed Island, Little Vine, and Betty Baker. Major deposits in the Iron Ridge segment wereGossan Howard, Huey and Bumbarger-Iron King (Gair and Slack, 1984).
Deposit The Betty Baker segment was mined in a 1.7 km long zone of nearly continuous shallow trenches. This segment may contain a greater tonnage of sulfide than the Iron Ridge segment, but the thinness of the deposit and the low base metal contents of the primary sulfides precluded mining there after 1908 when the supergene copper and gossan iron were exhausted (Gair and Slack, 1984).

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 29-DEC-03 Woodruff, Laurel G. U.S. Geological Survey Work done in Filemaker

Beyond USGS

Supplemental information added by qvyshift.com. Not part of the original USGS MRDS record.

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