California · Nevada County
Past Producer

Murchie Mine

Nevada County, California, United States
GoldSilver
⌖ Show on mapUSGS source ↗
Commodities
PrimaryGold, Silver
Commodity typeM
Deposit
Deposit typeHydrothermal vein
Model273: Low-sulfide Au-quartz vein
Orebody formTabular
Ore controlOre shoots within quartz veins. Lindgren (1896b) reported that the principal ore shoots on the Big Blue Vein dip to the west and appear to follow the lines of intersection with the flat veins. A lamprophyric dike follows the Big Blue for some distance.
Materials
Ore mineralsGold, Pyrite, Chalcopyrite, Galena, Sphalerite, Telluride
GangueQuartz
Geology
Host rockGranodiorite,Lamprophyre · Yuba Rivers Pluton
StructureWeimar Fault Zone, Gillis Hill Fault
Tectonic settingMagmatic arc
AlterationNone reported in documents researched. MacBoyle (1919) stated that the wallrock of the Big Blue Vein is unaltered.
Economic & production
Development statusPast Producer
Discovery year1861
Identification
Deposit ID10310712
Alternate namesLone Star, Big Blue
RegionNA
Data scoreA
Coordinates39.265, -120.98611
References
Clark, W.B., 1970, Gold districts of California: California Division of Mines and Geology Bulletin 193, p. 97-101.Crawford, J.J., 1896, Nevada County: Thirteenth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist, California State Mining Bureau, p. 250.Hobson, J.B. and Wiltsee, E.M., 1893, Nevada City Mining District: Eleventh Annual Report of the State Mineralogist, California State Mining Bureau, p. 285-296.Johnston, W.G., Jr., 1938, Vein-filling at Nevada City, California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 49, no. 1, p. 23-34.Johnston, W.G., Jr., 1940, The gold-quartz veins of Grass Valley, California: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 194, 101 p.Koschmann, A.H., and Bergendahl, M.H., 1968, Principal gold-producing districts of the United States: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 610, 283 p.Lindgren, W., 1896a, Geologic atlas of the United States - Nevada City Special Folio: U.S. Geological Survey Folio 29, 7 p..Lindgren, W., 1896b, Gold-quartz veins of Nevada City and Grass Valley: Seventeenth Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, Part 2, p. 1-262Logan, C.A.,1930, Nevada County: Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist, California Division of Mines, p. 118-119.Logan, C.A.,1935, Nevada County: California Journal of Mines and Geology, v. 31, p. 13.Logan, C.A.,1941, Mineral resources of Nevada County: California Journal of Mines and Geology, v. 37, no. 3, p. 380.MacBoyle, E.M., 1919, Mines and mineral resources of Nevada County: Sixteenth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist, California State Mining Bureau, p. 1-270.Saucedo, G.J. and Wagner, D.L., 1992, Geologic map of the Chico Quadrangle, California: California Department of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology Regional Geologic Map Series, Map No. 7A, scale 1:250,000.Schweickert, R.A., Hanson, R.E., and Girty, G.H., 1999, Accretionary tectonics of the Western Sierra Nevada Metamorphic Belt in Wagner, D.L. and Graham, S.A., editors, Geologic field trips in northern California: California Division of Mines and Geology Special Publication 119, p. 33-79.Tuminas, A., 1983, Structural and stratigraphic relations in the Grass Valley-Colfax area of the northern Sierra Nevada, California: Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis, 415 p.