ORE-HORIZONS IN THE VEINS OF THE SANJUAN

MOUNTAINS, COLORADO.
CHESTER WELLS PURINGTON.

The fact that the ore of metalliferous veins occurs in shoots

is wellknown. Such shoots mayvarygreatly in dimensions, but generally havetheir longer diameters morenearlyapproaching thevertical thanthehorizontal. In thegreat majority of cases, in fact,where shoots of oreoccur in veins whose origin is dueto the fillingof previously formedopenfissures, the shoots havea definite oblique pitch in theplane of thevein,such pitch being entirely independent of thedipof theveinin which theyoccur.
The phenomena of pitchingshootsof ore are characteristic

not onlyof veins in slates, gchists andgneisses whose laminae.

correspond in direction with the strike of the veins contained in

them,but occur sometimes with extraoradinary regularity in. veins of ore which penetrate. rocks of entirely homogeneous.
texture.

In the consideration of the features attendant on secondary enrichment of ore-bodies, it hasbeen recognized that layers of bonanza ore occur,independent of the tendency of the rich
portions of the ore as originally deposited to form in definite shoots.Such layers maybenearly horizontal in extent, butthere is rarelymorethanonerichlayer,whichliesat a moderate vertical distance below the outcrop. Further,thereare well-known. cases in which the character of the orechanges successively in depth, several layers or horizons of ore in descending contain-

inga greater or less .quantity of a g4ven sulphide. In these cases,

however, thechange maybe independent of thevalueof theore. In the present paperit is the intention of the writer to con-. sideran occurrence in the eroded plateau region of southwest

Colorado known astheSanJuan Mountains, where nearly vertical or steeply dipping metalliferous veinstraverse several thou12 9

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sands of feet of nearly horizontally bedded lavasand underlying

sediments. Carlonsof from three to six thousandfeet in depth have been cut in the plateau below its original lev.el,affording excellentsections for the studyOf the vein phenomena, and good facilities for the exploitationof the gold, silver and lead values
which the veins contain.

In the part of this region known as the Telluride district, and comprisingthe drainage of the head-streams of the San Miguel river especially, the rock formations,althoughexceedingly regular in physicalform are of great heterogeneityof composition. The average height of the mountain crestsis 3,ooo feet, and the upper 300 to 60o feet of the sectionis occupied by a fairly

homogeneous rhyoliticflow, knownas the Potosi ' rhyolite. Succeedingthis in descending order comesa sectionof'50o feet of
a denseblue andesire. Underlying this is a brecciatedandesitic tuff about 20o feet in thickness,the bulk of the fragments in which are of rhyolite. The blue andesiteand rhyolitic basal
breccia are known as the Silverton series.

Beneath this is a thickness of 2,00o feet of andesitic flow-

breccias, volcanicash-beds, with a few intercalatedlayers of'pure andesireand somebeds which are so full of roundedpebblesof

granite and older sedimentaries as to more properlybe called conglomerate. Bouldersup to six and seven feet in diameter occur in some of the conglomeraticlayers. To this immense thickness Mr. Cross hasgiventhe nameof the San Juanbreccias. Underlying the breccias and beddedentirely conformably with them is a 20o- to 3oo-footthickness of heavy conglomerate in which the pebblesare all rounded. Beneath the conglomerate are sandstones of Triassic age, reddish color, unconformable with the overlying rocks,but still not varying over 5 degrees from the horizontalin dip. Few of the carlons in the vicinity of the known ore-bodies and working mines are cut below the
level of these sandstones,and about Telluride no mining ex-

plorationhaspenetrated to their base.

It is with the volcanic lavas and breccias that the Telluride
The names adopted are those given by Mr. Whitman Cross, whose classic work in the San Juan region is too well known to need farther reference.

ORE-HORiZONS

IN

SAN JUAN

MOUNTAINS

I3t

miner concernshimself, since in the red sandstones below the ore, so' far as known, is of little or no value.

Fissuresof great length, in somecases of five miles, and of a vertical extent exceedingfive thousand feet, cut, all the rocks enumeratedarranged in definite system, to which I have elsewhere referred. Many of thesefissureswhen formed afforded open space,which has subsequently been filled with ore and gangueminerals. In consequence the region is one traversedby

metalliferous veins, the exploitation of some of whichhasproved

handsomely remunerative. In the working out of the ore-bodiesit has been found that the ore lies in layers or "floors." Although secondary enrich-

ment, especially of thesilver values, has undoubtedly played some

part, yet it is evident in the stopingup of a sectionon one of the veins that several alternations of rich and poor layers of ore
OCCtlr.

The first and most evidentcauseof this is purely mechanical. Fissuring did not take place with facility in all the rocks. In the Potosi or upper rhyolite, veinswhich attain a width of from five to fifteen feet in the Silverton andesite,are represented by seamsof quartz scarcelyone-half inch in width, or by zonesof such seams,not exceedingtwo feet in aggregate width. As the Silverton seriesof andesiteis fairly homogeneous in texture down to the top of the rhyolitic layer, the veins penetratingit have more nearly uniform width in it, and do not pinch again until they enter the rhyolitic brecciaat the base. The rhyolitic layer at the baseof the Silvertonseriesis from I$o to 300 feet thick, and occursat an average elevation of I,9oo feet. In Savage,Marshall, Middle, Inram and Bridal Veil basinsit has resistederosionso that it forms an elevatedfloor or pavement for the upper portionsof thesebasinsor glacial cirques. It matters little how large the veins may be above this thin

lyer of rhyoliticmaterial or below;in traversing the layerthey

generally pinch to narrow seams,and occasionally are represented by fissures carryingno quartz. Bare ledges of rock,nearly fiat in surface,and in which every minute fracture can be plainly seen, frequently occur, covering some acres of ground in the

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path of the big veins. It is rare, however,that anythingmore than a one-halfinch stringeror narrow belt of inch stringersmay be seen. For example,the Tomboyvein, in SavageBasin,which
appearsas a vein of several feet in width both above and below

the rhyolitichorizon,is represented as it crosses the flat at 2,000 feet elevationin this basinby surfaceoutcrops of a narrow ilssured zone, in some places carrying less than three inches of quartz. A remarkablecaseoccursin this basinon the Occidental claim, where a short drift is run on a quartz vein three feet in
width at the horizon of 2,0o feet in the pure andesite of the
Silverton series. At a vertical distance less than 00 feet below,

and lessthan 500 feet away, a bare ledge of the rhyolitic layer outcropsdirectly on the strike of the vein, and only two fissures carrying one-quarterof an inch of width of quartz each represent the vein on its strike.

Below the Silverton series, in the 2,000 feet of San Juan

breccias, the veinshave generallygood but variablewidth. The writer has noted that where the containedpebbles and fragments of the brecciasare of granite or of material harder than the enclosing volcanicmatrix the original fissures formed with great difficulty, and resulting veins are in consequence narrow and locallydivertedfrom their strike. On the other hand,when the fragmentsare of andesitic character,the fracturescut through the matrix and fragmentsalike with sharpness and no diversion. Wideningsof the veinsto ten and evenfifteenfeet with solid quartz filling betweenwalls are not uncommon in the breccias. In the underlying conglomerate the fissuringtook place with difficulty. They are generally narrow and irregular, and the veins have rarely any importance. In the red sandstones, the veins which may be large in the brecciasgenerally pinch to one- or two-inch quartz seams,or narrow belts of suchseams. If a limestone layer intervenes, the veins are likely to viden in sucha layer. In the mineslying in the sediments below Ouray remarkable cases of suchalternating width of vein-material are seenin successive layers of sandstone
and limestone. In these cases,however, the effect of fissuring

is obscured by that of molecularreplacement.

ORE-HORIZONS IN SANJUANMOUNTAINS
The second cause of the occurrence of horizontal

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ore horizons

in the Telluride district is one less easily understood,and is, in the opinionof the writer, dependent on the varying influenceof the successive horizons of wall-rock in the precipitation of the
metals in the veins.

In rhyolitic layers, even where veins are of workable size, quartz and gangue minerals (rhodonite, calcite, rhodochrosite, etc.) occur,and even lead sulphide, as in certain cases about Silverton, but valuesin gold and silver are notablylacking. In the Silverton pure andesite,however, a rock considerablylower in silica contents,the ore is generally good, frequently of high grade, as for example in the Camp Bird, Tomboy, SmugglerUnion and Humboldt mines.

In the San Juan andesiticbreccias the value of the ore is said by mine managers to vary in value from layer to layer. Such variationsmay be observed within the limits of a stope,in working up on the vein. The writer has noticedthat at the horizon of I I,OOO feet, and for 300 feet verticallyabove,many of the large ore-bodies in the San Juan breccias occur. A singlestopein the Smuggler-Union vein within these vertical limits exceedsone mile in length. In this part of the sectionthe breccias are of rather basiccharacterand contain comparativelyfew fragments. It appears probable that the ore-horizons of the SanJuan,judging from the occurrences about Telluride, are dependent on two .causes,the one mechanical, the other chemical. As regards the fissuring, the rule of narrow veinsin the rhyoliticlayerswill be found to hold, althoughit is not without exceptions. The

principle that riclerlayersor floors of ore occur coincident With

less siliceousrather than more siliceouslayers of wall-rock is one which the writer believes' can be established.