Quartz Creek district

Location: Colorado, United States (38.638, -106.474 approx.)

Commodities: copper; gold; graphite; lead; silver

Geology

“The Quartz Creek mining district is a broad area encompassing much of the upper headwater basin of Quartz Creek and part of the Continental Divide. The majority of productive deposits occur on the exposed rim of a large bowl-shaped erosional remnant of Paleozoic carbonate and marine clastic rocks. This remnant outcrops in the area between the town of Pitkin, on Quartz Creek, and Halls Gulch to the north near Fairview Peak. The northern end of the district includes deposits of gold-silver, tungsten, and molybdenum near Cumberland Pass. To the east the Quartz Creek district includes small precious and base metal deposits in Proterozoic rocks occurring east of Sherrod on the Continental Divide. Most production has come from replacement deposits in dolomitic beds. Production from vein-type deposits is appreciably less. Reported production figures are sparse but the district produced 3,780 oz silver, 186 oz gold, 13,560 lb lead, and 150 lb copper in the years 1934-1943.” (Streufert (1999)) “Carbonate-hosted silver-lead replacement deposits in highly faulted Paleozoic sedimentary rocks w/ minor Precambrian hosted vein deposits” (Streufert (1999))

Recorded production

• Quartz Creek district: produced 186 troy ounces of gold (Au), 1934–1943 (Streufert (1999), Page 30, Table 1 — Streufert, R.K., 1999, Geology and mineral resources of Gunnison County, Colorado: Colorado Geological Survey Resource Series 37, 76 p., https://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/publications/geology-mineral-resources-gunnison-colorado/.)
• Quartz Creek district: produced 1,000 metric tons of graphite at 96 percent, 1918. Mat_Amnt reported as "forty-five twenty-five-ton cars" and some of this product is said to have been 96% graphitic carbon (Carroll (1919), Page 134 — Carroll, F., 1919, Fifteenth Biennial report of the Bureau of Mines of the State of Colorado for the Years 1917 and 1918: Colorado Bureau of Mines, 206 p.)
• Quartz Creek district: produced 150 pounds of copper (Cu), 1934–1943 (Streufert (1999), Page 30, Table 1 — Streufert, R.K., 1999, Geology and mineral resources of Gunnison County, Colorado: Colorado Geological Survey Resource Series 37, 76 p., https://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/publications/geology-mineral-resources-gunnison-colorado/.)
• Quartz Creek district: produced 3,780 troy ounces of silver (Ag), 1934–1943 (Streufert (1999), Page 30, Table 1 — Streufert, R.K., 1999, Geology and mineral resources of Gunnison County, Colorado: Colorado Geological Survey Resource Series 37, 76 p., https://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/publications/geology-mineral-resources-gunnison-colorado/.)
• Quartz Creek district: produced 6.1 metric tons of lead (Pb), 1934–1943 (Streufert (1999), Page 30, Table 1 — Streufert, R.K., 1999, Geology and mineral resources of Gunnison County, Colorado: Colorado Geological Survey Resource Series 37, 76 p., https://coloradogeologicalsurvey.org/publications/geology-mineral-resources-gunnison-colorado/.)

Exploration and site history

• Active — Intermediate production from 1878 (1) to 1943, with graphite production around 1918 (2), 1878–1943 (Streufert (1999))
• Discovery — The discovery of the Red Jacket deposit in 1878 is considered the year of discovery for the district, 1878 (Dunn (2015))

Record imported from USGS USMIN ver. 4.0 (June 2019). Developments after that date appear on facility records, not here; see the methodology.