Sunflower Mining District (Mazatzal Mountains Mining District; Mazatzal Mountains Quicksilver Mining District), Gila County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Sunflower Mining District (Mazatzal Mountains Mining District; Mazatzal Mountains Quicksilver Mining District)	Mining District
Gila County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

This is a mercury mining area located in T5-7N, R8-10E, in the Mazatzal Mountains, principally on the eastern slope, but also on the western slope in Maricopa County. The district is named after the Sunflower Mine, one of the prominent mines in the district. Production ceased about 1955.

The quicksilver deposits of the Sunflower District are lodes, which in general conform to the lamination of the schist in which they lie. In the southwestern part of the quicksilver belt three approximately parallel lodes are recognized. These are from 300 to 500 feet apart. The middle or Packover lode appears to be the longest and the best metallized and is the one on which nearly all development work has been done.

The lodes consist of veinlets, films, and specks of cinnabar in schist and as a rule have no definite walls. Associated with the cinnabar, particularly in the larger veinlets, is more or less gangue. The usual gangue-forming minerals below the zone of oxidation are calcite; a buff ferruginous carbonate, probably of variable composition, which leaves a residue of limonite on weathering; and quartz. Some barite is reported. Sulfides other than cinnabar are rare within the veinlets, although small crystals of pyrite closely associated with flecks of cinnabar are fairly abundant in some of the schist near veinlets. A very little chalcopyrite was noted. Globules of native mercury occur with some of the cinnabar.

Most of the veinlets or stringers lie in the cleavage planes of the schist and range from mere films to veins 6 inches thick. Stringers over an inch thick are exceptional. In some places stringers cut across the schistosity. As a rule the veinlets interleaved with the schist are not individually persistent for more than a few feet; they thin out and are succeeded by others. Many of the stringers that cut across the schists are very irregular in course and width. The abundance of the cinnabar veinlets and the total width of the metallized zone vary greatly from place to place.

Although the individual veinlets are not persistent, the Packover lode as a whole is traceable with reasonable certainty for at least 3 miles (5 km).

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References