Mike Deposit

Producer in Eureka county in Nevada, United States with commodities Gold, Silver, Copper, Zinc, Lead, Molybdenum, Arsenic, Iron, Bismuth, Antimony, Tungsten

Sections on this page

Identification information
Geographic coordinates
Site location context
Geographic areas
Public Land Survey System information
Commodities
Materials information
Alteration
Mineral occurrence model information
Host and associated rocks
Nearby scientific data
Geologic structures
Ore body information
Controls for ore emplacement
Economic information about the deposit and operations
Mining district
Land status
Ownership information
Bibliographic references
General comments
Reporter information

Geologic information

Identification information

Deposit ID	10310468
Record type	Site
Current site name	Mike Deposit
Alternate or previous names	Main Mike, West Mike, part of Newmont?s Carlin-South operations
Related records	10310323

Geographic coordinates

Point of reference	Ore Body
Geographic coordinates:	-116.2473, 40.8097 (WGS84)
Elevation	1650
Location accuracy	1000(meters)
Relative position	The Mike gold-copper-zinc deposit is located in the Maggie Creek mining district of the central Carlin trend, Eureka County, Nevada, about 10 mile northwest of the town of Carlin, 1 mile NW of the Tusc deposit.

Site location context

Political divisions (FIPS codes)

Eureka(county)

Nevada(state)

United States(country)

North America(continent)

Land(continent)

USGS map quadrangles

Schroeder Mountain(quadrangle 1:24,000 scale)

Battle Mountain(quadrangle 1:100,000 scale)

Winnemucca(quadrangle 1:250,000 scale)

Hydrologic units (watersheds)

Upper Humboldt(hydrologic unit)

Humboldt(hydrologic accounting unit)

Black Rock Desert-Humboldt(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	Eureka

Public Land Survey System information

Meridian	Township	Range	Section	Fraction	State
Mount Diablo	34N	51E	28		Nevada

Comments on the location information

The Mike Deposit is located about three miles northwest of the Gold Quarry Mine, and about a mile northwest of the Tusc deposit, on the eastern flank of the Tuscarora Mountains.

Commodities

Commodity	Importance
Gold	Primary
Silver	Primary
Copper	Secondary
Zinc Critical	Secondary
Lead	Secondary
Molybdenum	Tertiary
Arsenic Critical	Tertiary
Iron	Tertiary
Bismuth Critical	Tertiary
Antimony Critical	Tertiary
Tungsten Critical	Tertiary

Comments on the commodity information

Ore Materials: gold, arsenian pyrite, iron-rich sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite
Gangue Materials: pyrite, iron-rich sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite, molybdenite, quartz, carbonate, arsenic-bismuth-lead-silver sulfosalt, diopside, garnet, stibnite, scheelite, powellite

Materials information

Materials	Type of material
Gold	Ore
Sphalerite	Ore
Galena	Ore
Chalcopyrite	Ore
Pyrite	Ore
Sphalerite	Ore
Galena	Ore
Chalcopyrite	Ore
Molybdenite	Ore
Quartz	Ore
Diopside	Ore
Garnet	Ore
Stibnite	Ore
Scheelite	Ore
Powellite	Ore
Pyrite	Gangue

Alteration

(Local) Alteration products include sooty pyrite/marcasite, variable silicification, kaolinite, sulfide-silica-matrix breccia, dissolution-collapse breccia, and quartz-orpiment veins.

Mineral occurrence model information

Model code	173
USGS model code	26a.1
Deposit model name	Sediment-hosted Au
Mark3 model number	17
Model code	59
USGS model code	18b
Deposit model name	Skarn Cu
Mark3 model number	8

Host and associated rocks

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Carbonate > Limestone

Rock type qualifier

sandy

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Wenlock

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Siltstone

Rock type qualifier

calcareous

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Wenlock

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Chemical Sediment > Chert

Rock type qualifier

argillaceous

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Wenlock

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Argillite

Rock type qualifier

siliceous

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Wenlock

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Siltstone

Rock unit name

Roberts Mountains Formation

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Wenlock

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Metamorphic Rock > Hornfels

Rock type qualifier

light- to dark-gray calcsilicate

Rock unit name

Popovich Formation

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Middle Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Late Devonian

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Sedimentary Rock > Clastic Sedimentary Rock > Siltstone

Rock type qualifier

calcareous

Rock unit name

Rodeo Creek Unit

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Middle Devonian
Stratigraphic age (oldest)	Late Devonian

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Plutonic Rock > Mafic Intrusive Rock

Rock type qualifier

mafic to intermediate dikes

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Cretaceous
Chronological age	107

Host or associated

Host

Rock type

Volcanic Rock (Aphanitic) > Intermediate Volcanic Rock

Rock type qualifier

mafic to intermediate dikes

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Early Cretaceous
Chronological age	107

Host or associated Associated

Rock type

Rock unit name Richmond Stock

Stratigraphic age (youngest) Oligocene

Host or associated

Associated

Rock type

Rock unit name

Welches Canyon Stock

Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Middle Eocene
Chronological age	38
Stratigraphic age (youngest)	Late Eocene
Chronological age	37

Nearby scientific data

Ore Body (1)	-116.2473, 40.8097	ListMap

Economic information

Geologic structures

Type of structure	Regional
Structure description	Deposits in the Maggie Creek subdistrict are primarily hosted by lower-plate carbonate and clastic rocks of Devonian and Silurian age exposed in a domed window through the Roberts Mountains allochthon. The Carlin window is an erosionally breached, northwest-trending anticlinorium, exposing an autochthonous core beneath upperplate, siliceous and carbonate-clastic rocks of Devonian to Ordovician age in the Roberts Mountains overthrust sheet. Lower-plate exposures are bound by high-angle, normal faults on the southeastern, southwestern, and northwestern flanks of the Schroeder Mountain uplift. The margins of the window are down-faulted, and disconformably overlain by volcaniclastic sedimentary rock and gravel of the Tertiary Carlin Formation. Most of the deposits are in the southwestern part of the Carlin Window in a mile-wide northwest-elongated belt of subdued topography along and in the footwall of the Good Hope reverse fault between Marys and Schroeder Mountains called the Tusc Corridor.
Type of structure	Local
Structure description	Carlin-type gold mineralization is concentrated along the northwest-dipping Soap Creek fault, the northwest-striking, northeast-dipping Good Hope reverse fault, and the west-dipping Valley fault.

Ore body information

General form tabular

General form	tabular

Controls for ore emplacement

Most of the deposits are in the southwestern part of the Carlin Window in a mile-wide northwest-elongated belt of subdued topography along and in the footwall of the Good Hope reverse fault between Marys and Schroeder Mountains called the Tusc Corridor. Carlin-type gold mineralization is concentrated along the northwest-dipping Soap Creek fault, the northwest-striking, northeast-dipping Good Hope reverse fault, and the west-dipping Valley fault.

Comments on the geologic information

A copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry northwest of Mike is inferred by the distributions of hornfels, potassium feldspar, tungsten, and molybdenum. This porphyry and associated mesothermal mineral system are inferred to be Cretaceous based on the age of apparently related replacement-style potassium feldspar at Mike. Sphalerite-dominated quartz veins at Mike also suggest a location peripheral to a zoned porphyry system. Secondary copper, zinc, and silver concentrations diminish to the southeast, indicating a source of these metals to the northwest.

Economic information about the deposit and operations

Operation type	Surface
Development status	Producer
Deposit size	Medium
Significant	Yes
Discovery year	1989
Discoverer	Charles Ekburg and Robert Ryneer of Newmont Exploration, Ltd.\n

Mining district

District name	Maggie Creek Subdist
District name	Carlin Trend

Land status

Ownership category	BLM Administrative Area
Area name	Elko BLM Administrative District

Ownership information

Type Owner-Operator

Owner Newmont Gold Corp.

Year 2004

Type	Owner-Operator
Owner	Newmont Gold Corp.
Year	2004

Comments on the workings information

drilling

Comments on other economic factors

The total 1999 drill-indicated mineral inventory for the Main Mike and West Mike deposits is: 408 million short tons (370 million tonnes) of gold ore grading 0.021 ounces of gold per ton (0.72 g/t) for a total 8,568,000 contained ounces of gold (266 tonnes); 151 million short tons of ore containing 0.34 wt.% copper for a total of 1,027 million pounds of copper; and 19 million short tons of ore containing 2.13 wt.% zinc for a total of 809 million pounds of zinc.

Comments on development

The earliest prospecting in the Maggie Creek district was in the 1870s, and several hundred tons of gold, silver, copper, and lead ores were produced through 1952. In the 1880s, oxide-copper mineralization was discovered on the Copper King claims, one mile (1.6 km) southeast of the Mike deposit area and directly southwest of the Tusc gold mine area. The Copper King Mine produced approximately 14,800 short tons of oxide ore that averaged 3.4 wt.% copper from underground workings and small open cuts from 1952 through 1958. Occidental Minerals Corporation explored for a northwest extension of this ore during the early 1970s and drilled three holes through the later-defined Good Hope copper lobe of the Mike deposit. Occidental identified a blanket of secondary copper oxides and chalcocite in the Paleozoic section plunging beneath increasingly thicker Tertiary cover towards the northwest, but did not define economic copper mineralization. After a series of economic discoveries at Gold Quarry, Mac, and Tusc during the late 1970s and the 1980s, Newmont Mining Corporation discovered the Main Mike gold deposit in 1989, using an exploration strategy of tracking gold mineralization along the northwest extension of the Good Hope fault from Gold Quarry and Tusc under postmineral cover to the postulated intersection with the Soap Creek fault. Definition of the deposit through infill drilling and further exploration resulted in the discovery of the West Mike gold deposit and the Corridor copper lobe in 1992, and expansion of the gold and copper resources at both West and Main Mike in 1993 and 1994. Widespread occurrence of oxide copper minerals in core prompted estimates of copper inventories for Main Mike and West Mike. Renewed exploration in 1997-2000 resulted in delineation of the West Mike lower gold zone, expansion of the West Mike copper resource, and discovery of a deposit-wide blanket of zinc.

Reference information

Bibliographic references

Deposit

Schull, H.W., 1991, The Lithostratigraphy and Sedimentology of the Contact/Transition Between the Roberts Mountains Formation and the Western Facies Rocks in the Carlin Mining District, Eureka and Elko Counties, Nevada, in Raines, G.L., et al., eds., The Geology and Ore Deposits of the Great Basin, The Geological Society of Nevada, Reno, p. 705-712.
Deposit

Ekburg, C., Rota, J., and Arkell, B., 1991, Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Maggie Creek Subdistrict, Carlin Trend, Eureka County, Nevada, in Raines, G.L., et al., eds., The Geology and Ore Deposits of the Great Basin, The Geological Society of Nevada, Reno, p. 625-633.
Deposit

Rota, J., 1990, Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Maggie Creek Subdistrict, Carlin Trend, Eureka County, Nevada, Oral Presentation at Great Basin Symposium, The Geological Society of Nevada, Sparks, NV, April, 1990.
Deposit

Arkell, B., 1992, Geology of the Tusc and Mac Deposits, in Buffa, R. and Coyner, A., eds., Geology and Ore Deposits of the Great Basin-Field Trip Guidebook Compendium, The Geological Society of Nevada, Reno, p. 862-864.
Deposit

Mcfarlane, D., 1992, Gold Production on the Carlin Trend, in Buffa, R. and Coyner, A., eds., Geology and Ore Deposits of the Great Basin-Field Trip Guidebook Compendium, The Geological Society of Nevada, Reno, p. 841-843.
Deposit

NBMG, 1994, MI-1993
Deposit

Long, K.R., DeYoung, J.H., Jr., and Ludington, S.D., 1998, Database of significant deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc in the United States; Part A, Database description and analysis; part B, Digital database: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-206, 33 p., one 3.5 inch diskette.
Deposit

John W. Norby and Michael J.T. Orobona, 2002, Geology and Mineral Systems of the Mike Deposit; in Gold Deposits of the Carlin Trend, NBMG Bull. 111.

General comments

Subject category	Comment text
Deposit	Mike is at the northwest end of a 3-mile (5-km) long belt of Carlin-type gold deposits aligned along the footwall of the northwest-striking, northeast-dipping Good Hope fault. Mike is subdivided into the West Mike deposit in the footwall of this apparent reverse fault and the Main Mike deposit along the fault and in the hanging wall. Contact-metamorphic, Carlin-type, and secondarily enriched mineral systems are hosted in variable hornfels after Silurian to Devonian carbonate and siliciclastic rocks of the Roberts Mountains Formation, Popovich Formation, and Rodeo Creek unit, and in mafic to intermediate dikes of at least 107 Ma age. Contact-metamorphic mineralization is coincident with potassium metasomatism dated at 111-107 Ma, and the formation of hornfels and local skarn. Mineralization typically consists of quartz-sulfide veins dominated by coarse-grained pyrite and iron-rich sphalerite with minor galena, chalcopyrite, and molybdenite. Quartz-carbonate veins hosting an arsenic-bismuth-lead-silver sulfosalt also occur throughout the deposit. At northwest West Mike, sphalerite-dominated, replacement-style base-metal mineralization is concentrated along the contact between the Rodeo Creek unit and the Popovich Formation. West Mike gold mineralization is roughly flat-lying and stratiform, and segregated into upper and lower zones. The upper zone is 200 to 450 feet (60-135 m) thick, decarbonatized, oxidized, and grades 0.025 opt (0.86 g/t) gold. The lower zone has similar thickness, is partially oxidized, grades 0.080 opt (2.7 g/t), and is coincident with a 70- to 200-foot (21-60 m) thick dolomitic front at the base of decarbonatization. Gold at Main Mike grades an average 0.037 opt (1.2 g/t) and occurs in an oxidized and decarbonatized zone at the intersection of the Soap Creek and Good Hope faults. Sulfide-zone gold at the Mike deposit occurs in micron-size, arsenian pyrite rims coating euhedral, coarser-grained pyrite. Oxide-zone copper occurs in copper silicates, clays, arsenates, phosphates, oxides, and carbonates. Copper is sited in chalcocite and locally covellite in the top-of-sulfide zone and in sulfide lenses in overlying oxidized rock. Copper-bearing zones are typically decarbonatized, clay altered, alunite veined/replaced, and iron oxide stained. Oxide gold deposits at both Main Mike and the analogous Tusc, 4,000 feet (1,200 m) to the southeast, contain higher-grade (>0.05 opt [1.7 g/t]), flat-lying, bedding-discordant cores-possible supergene upgrades. Mineralization is completely covered by postmineral volcaniclastic sediment of the Tertiary Carlin Formation.

Subject category

Comment text

Deposit

Mike is at the northwest end of a 3-mile (5-km) long belt of Carlin-type gold deposits aligned along the footwall of the northwest-striking, northeast-dipping Good Hope fault. Mike is subdivided into the West Mike deposit in the footwall of this apparent reverse fault and the Main Mike deposit along the fault and in the hanging wall. Contact-metamorphic, Carlin-type, and secondarily enriched mineral systems are hosted in variable hornfels after Silurian to Devonian carbonate and siliciclastic rocks of the Roberts Mountains Formation, Popovich Formation, and Rodeo Creek unit, and in mafic to intermediate dikes of at least 107 Ma age. Contact-metamorphic mineralization is coincident with potassium metasomatism dated at 111-107 Ma, and the formation of hornfels and local skarn. Mineralization typically consists of quartz-sulfide veins dominated by coarse-grained pyrite and iron-rich sphalerite with minor galena, chalcopyrite, and molybdenite. Quartz-carbonate veins hosting an arsenic-bismuth-lead-silver sulfosalt also occur throughout the deposit. At northwest West Mike, sphalerite-dominated, replacement-style base-metal mineralization is concentrated along the contact between the Rodeo Creek unit and the Popovich Formation.
West Mike gold mineralization is roughly flat-lying and stratiform, and segregated into upper and lower zones. The upper zone is 200 to 450 feet (60-135 m) thick, decarbonatized, oxidized, and grades 0.025 opt (0.86 g/t) gold. The lower zone has similar thickness, is partially oxidized, grades 0.080 opt (2.7 g/t), and is coincident with a 70- to 200-foot (21-60 m) thick dolomitic front at the base of decarbonatization. Gold at Main Mike grades an average 0.037 opt (1.2 g/t) and occurs in an oxidized and decarbonatized zone at the intersection of the Soap Creek and Good Hope faults. Sulfide-zone gold at the Mike deposit occurs in micron-size, arsenian pyrite rims coating euhedral, coarser-grained pyrite. Oxide-zone copper occurs in copper silicates, clays, arsenates, phosphates, oxides, and carbonates. Copper is sited in chalcocite and locally covellite in the top-of-sulfide zone and in sulfide lenses in overlying oxidized rock. Copper-bearing zones are typically decarbonatized, clay altered, alunite veined/replaced, and iron oxide stained. Oxide gold deposits at both Main Mike and the analogous Tusc, 4,000 feet (1,200 m) to the southeast, contain higher-grade (>0.05 opt [1.7 g/t]), flat-lying, bedding-discordant cores-possible supergene upgrades.
Mineralization is completely covered by postmineral volcaniclastic sediment of the Tertiary Carlin Formation.

Reporter information

Type	Date	Name	Affiliation	Comment
Reporter	01-JAN-05	LaPointe, D.D.	Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
Editor	01-SEP-07	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.

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