Field Guides Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

LOCATION (MRDS, 2011) T.21S R.59E Sec 32 36.08329 -115.3989 HISTORY AND OWNERSHIP The Mateucci Gypsum mine is a northern extension of the Blue Diamond Mine. Aerial photographs show it is vegetated suggesting that the Mateucci pit is... more

LOCATION (MRDS, 2011)

T.21S R.59E Sec 32 36.08329 -115.3989

HISTORY AND OWNERSHIP

The Mateucci Gypsum mine is a northern extension of the Blue Diamond Mine. Aerial photographs show it is vegetated suggesting that the Mateucci pit is part of an older era of Blue Diamond mine development. The early Arden mine and later Blue Diamond Mine both used tramways to take gypsum ore off the mountain and transport it to processing plants.

The Blue Diamond mine is in the Ardan Gypsum District. Major gypsum producers in this district include the Arden, Bard, Blue Diamond, Honey Comb, Last Chance and Mateucci mines. Descriptions of them are found in Murphy (1954, Fig. 2), Longwell (1965:154-209), Hewett and others (1936:167, 169), USBOM, (1932, 1937, 1950), Minobras, (1973:10), and NDM (1991).

MINE GEOLOGY

Mining was originally room and pillar underground operation. It later became an open pit quarry

An oval-shaped hill, approximately 500 feet high and three-quarters of a mile in length, the longer axis trending northwest, is underlain by gypsum. The following section is exposed at the southern end of the hill (Jones and Stone, 1920:155):

Limestone, massive, dull gray, cherty, the chert in thin bands and lenses forming one-third of the mass; both chert and limestone with abundant poorly preserved fossils, the greater number being fragments of Productus and Athyris, bryozoans, and corals. 125± feet (Jones and Stone, 1920:155).

Shales, red and green, gypsiferous, with thin beds of gray limestone in places and including a bed of gypsum ranging from 25 to 80 feet in thickness.: 85 ± feet (Jones and Stone, 1920:155).

Limestone, gray massive with rare chert nodules; thickness unknown (Jones and Stone, 1920:155).

The strata dip gently to the east, and there probably is a fault along the eastern side of the hill. A transverse fault about a quarter of a mile northwest of the quarry apparently has cut off the gypsum. The gypsum ranges from 20 to nearly 90 feet thick, the upper surface being very irregular, as shown in figure 11 (Jones and Stone, 1920:155).

West of Arden, on the east side of the Spring Mountains, the gypsum is in the Permian red beds and the overlying Toroweap and Kaibab Formations (Moore, in Hewett and others, 1936, p. 167). The gypsum beds are commonly 5 to 15 feet thick, but locally may reach 75 feet in thickness. At a depth of 50 to 1oo feet from the surface the gypsum passes into anhydrite. Gypsum has been mined since 1925 in the hills near and east of Blue Diamond (fig. 20). Present production is chiefly from the upper (Harrisburg) member of tbc Kaibab Formation. Recent production is estimated to be more than 300,000 tons of gypsum annually. The reserves are large and exploration will probably reveal other large deposits. The Blue Diamond Co., a division of the Flintkote Co., operates a quarry, a plaster mill, and a gypsum lath and wallboard plant (Longwell and others, 1965:143-154).