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Limousine Butte Gold Deposits

Past Producer in White Pine county in Nevada, United States with commodities Gold, Silver, Arsenic, Bismuth, Copper, Tungsten
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Sections on this page
  1. Identification information
  2. Geographic coordinates
  3. Site location context
  4. Geographic areas
  5. Public Land Survey System information
  6. Commodities
  7. Materials information
  8. Alteration
  9. Mineral occurrence model information
  10. Host and associated rocks
  11. Nearby scientific data
  12. Geologic structures
  13. Ore body information
  14. Controls for ore emplacement
  15. Economic information about the deposit and operations
  16. Mining district
  17. Land status
  18. Ownership information
  19. Bibliographic references
  20. General comments
  21. Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID 10310428
Record type Site
Current site name Limousine Butte Gold Deposits
Alternate or previous names Resurrection Ridge (part)

Geographic coordinates

Geographic coordinates: -115.10088, 39.79993 (WGS84)
Relative position The deposit is located about 40 miles NNW of Ely.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

White Pine(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Franks Well(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Newark Lake(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Ely(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Long-Ruby Valleys(hydrologic unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(hydrologic accounting unit)

Central Nevada Desert Basins(hydrologic subregion)

Great Basin(hydrologic region)

Federal lands

Bureau of Land Management(Bureau of Land Management NV)

Bureau of Land Management NV BLM(Type of land area)

BLM(Federal land areas administered by BLM)

Geographic areas

Country State County
United States Nevada White Pine

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian Township Range Section Fraction State
Mount Diablo 022N 061E Nevada
Mount Diablo 023N 061E Nevada
Mount Diablo 024N 061E Nevada

Comments on the location information

  • This deposit is on the west flank of the Cherry Creek Range at the edge of Butte Valley, but as it has no organized mining district of its own, prospects in this area have in the past sometimes been included in the Cherry Creek District, whose mines lie mostly on the east side of the Cherry Creek Range. 765 unpatented mining claims cover the property.

Commodities

Commodity Importance
Gold Primary
Silver Primary
Arsenic Critical Tertiary
Bismuth Critical Tertiary
Copper Tertiary
Tungsten Critical Tertiary

Comments on the commodity information

  • Ore Materials: gold

Materials information

Materials Type of material
Gold Ore

Alteration

  • (Local) Rhyolite porphyry is argillized, adjacent sedimentary rocks are skarn-altered and jasperoidized.

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code 173
USGS model code 26a.1
Deposit model name Sediment-hosted Au
Mark3 model number 17
Model code 58
USGS model code 18a
Deposit model name Porphyry Cu, skarn-related
Mark3 model number 9
Model code 64
USGS model code 18f
Deposit model name Skarn Au
Mark3 model number 82

Host and associated rocks

  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Felsic Volcanic Rock > Rhyolite
    Rock type qualifier argillized porphyry
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Cretaceous
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Plutonic Rock > Porphyry
    Rock type qualifier argillized rhyolite
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Cretaceous
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Metamorphic Rock > Skarn (Tactite)
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Pennsylvanian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Devonian
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Shale
    Rock unit name Pilot Shale
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Early Mississippian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Late Devonian
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate > Limestone
    Rock unit name Ely Limestone
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Early Permian
    Stratigraphic age (oldest) Late Mississippian
  • Host or associated Host
    Rock type Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate > Dolomite
  • Host or associated Associated
    Rock type
    Rock unit name Bald Mountain Stock and associated intrusive rocks
    Stratigraphic age (youngest) Late Jurassic
    Chronological age 159

Nearby scientific data

(1) -115.10088, 39.79993
ListMap

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure Local
Structure description Black Metals Fault zone and other steeply-dipping fault zones.

Ore body information

  • General form irregular

Controls for ore emplacement

  • Gold mineralization was formed along the edge of an Eocene age volcanic filled graben or possible caldera margin. The graben contact fault is a "feeder fault", containing high-grade gold (30 feet of 0.260 opt) at the shale-dolomite graben fault contact. The strike extension of this fault, and the alteration associated with it, is at least six miles long.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Development status Past Producer
Commodity type Metallic
Deposit size Small
Significant Yes

Mining district

District name Butte Valley
District name Cherry Creek District

Land status

Ownership category BLM Administrative Area
Area name Ely BLM administrative district

Ownership information

  • Type Owner-Operator
    Owner Nevada Pacific Gold (US) Inc.
    Year 2004

Comments on other economic factors

  • The deposits contain a reported 620,000 ounce gold mineral inventory (2004).
    In the 1960s, Bear Creek Mining calculated the porphyry to contain a resource of 50 million tons of 0.6% copper.

Comments on development

  • Porphyry copper exploration by many exploration companies was carried out in the Limousine Butte project area from the 1950s through the1980s that drilled several zones of low-grade gold and copper mineralization. This work identified porphyry-related gold mineralization up to 0.070 opt Au and skarn style gold mineralization grading up to 0.19 opt Au in drill holes. During the 1980's the Alta Gold-Echo Bay joint venture mined approximately 130,000 ounces of gold from surface jasperiods via heap leach at the Golden Butte Mine adjacent to the northeast portion of the property.Nevada Pacific Gold acquired the property through claim staking in 1997 and began compiling all the historical geologic and geochemical data produced over this forty year period. Gulf Minerals first identified a porphyry/skarn type magnetic signature in Butte Valley with a high-level aeromagnetics survey in the mid-1950s. The Newmont/New Jersey Zinc Joint Venture first drilled the discovery in 1962. Bear Creek Mining later calculated the porphyry to contain a resource of 50 million tons of 0.6% copper which was covered by a 1500 to 2500 foot thick post-mineral slide block. Relogging of several holes in the porphyry system suggested a late gold system overprint crosscutting and replacing skarn altered sediments and hosted within argillized rhyolite. The best intercept in the skarn/porphyry consisted of 701 feet of 0.019 opt gold, in drill hole BV-10. A small gold resource of 91,000 ounces was produced from shale and jasperoid hosted dolomites at the Golden Butte Mine in the north part of the project area by Alta Gold from 1987-1989. Between the Golden Butte mine and the Butte Valley porphyry, several gold anomalies are present in the Paleozoic carbonate and clastic rocks that range in age from the Devonian Pilot Shale to the Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone. Exploration drilling and geologic mapping in the Golden Butte Mine area (Resurrection Ridge) has identified that gold was formed along the edge of an Eocene age volcanic filled graben or possible caldera margin. The graben contact fault is a "feeder fault", containing high-grade gold (30 feet of 0.260 opt) at the shale-dolomite graben fault contact. The strike extension of this fault, and the alteration associated with it, is at least six miles long. On April 1, 1999 Newmont Mining Corporation and NPG entered into a joint venture agreement to explore the Limousine Butte property. By June of 2002, Newmont had spent $1,048,220 on identifying and drilling twenty one sediment hosted gold targets within a 25 square mile area. Drilling by Newmont and NPG to date (2004) has defined six oxide gold mineral inventories containing 39.4 mt grading 0.016 opt gold for a total of 620,000 ounces of gold. In 2002, Newmont elected to sell back its interest in Limousine Butte and presently holds a sliding production royalty of 1.5% to 2.5%. Meanwhile, NPG continues to explore the project area having completed another round of drilling in 2003, intersecting additional high grade (20' @ 0.309 oz/t) and low grade (195' @ 0.05 oz/t) gold mineralization in the Resurrection Ridge area.

    Drilling is ongoing in spring, 2004.
  • At Nevada Pacific Gold Ltd.'s Limousine Butte project, joint venture partner Newmont Mining Corp. is focusing on six new target areas of hese new targets, located about 5 to 8 miles south of the previously identified discovery areas drilled during earlier exploration campaigns of the joint venture, were identified through exploration work conducted by Newmont, which consisted of a high-definition airborne magnetic/radiometric geophysical survey, ground-based gravity geophysics, detailed geologic mapping, and in excess of 800 rock chip/stream sediment samples. Using all drill-hole information available, Newmont has estimated mineral inventories on five disseminated oxide gold zones identified to date at Limousine Butte. These five zones, located in the central to northern portion of the project, contain in excess of 620,000 oz of gold (estimated at a 0.006 opt Au cutoff and an average grade of drill intercepts above that cutoff).

Reference information

Bibliographic references

  • Deposit

    Nevada Pacific Gold Ltd. website and press releases, 2002-2004.

  • Deposit

    NBMG MI-2002.

  • Deposit

    Curt Everson, 2004, Geology and Mineralization of the Limousine Butte gold deposits, White Pine County, Nevada; Geological Society of Nevada presentation and abstract.

  • Deposit

    Unpublished field observations from NBMG geologists who examined the prospect area in the early 1980s, on file at NBMG.

General comments

Subject category Comment text
Deposit The property consists of a hydrothermal gold system that exhibits alteration features related to sediment/structure hosted gold deposits found elsewhere in Nevada. Mineralization at the Limousine Butte property consists of disseminated, structurally controlled and skarn hosted gold deposits related to a large mineralized porphyry complex located beneath the valley floor. In addition to the gold potential, a substantive copper/gold porphyry is present at Limousine Butte. Prospect drilling (15 holes) in the 1960's and 70's indicates that it has minimum dimensions of 1.5 miles by 0.75 miles. The quartz porphyry intrusive with an associated sulfide-alteration system is centered below the western portion of the property and has altered and mineralized extensive portions of westerly dipping Mississipian sedimentary rocks. Broad zones of silicification, brecciation and hornfel/skarns are developed within shales and carbonates near the quartz porphyry intrusive. Jasperoid alteration is present within the same reactive rocks 4.5 miles to the east where they form outcrops along the range front. Anomalous gold and copper mineralization occurs within and adjacent to the intrusive such as: 1,000 feet grading 0.10 percent copper in hole BV-11 and 701 feet grading 0.019 opt gold in hole BV-10. Relogging of several holes in the porphyry system suggested a late gold system overprint crosscutting and replacing skarn altered sediments and hosted within argillized rhyolite.

Reporter information

Type Date Name Affiliation Comment
Reporter 01-JUN-2004 LaPointe, D.D. Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
Editor 01-SEP-2007 Schruben, Paul G. U.S. Geological Survey Converted from S&A FileMaker format to Oracle. Edit checks on rocks, units, and ages with Geolex search, and other fields.

Beyond USGS

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

Maps centered on this site

Authoritative Nevada resources

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