Gold Ore

Gold ore near, but not in, the Superstitions

The Superstition Mountains have long been associated with tales of gold treasure and legends of prospectors discovering gold in them. However, the rhyolites and dacites at make up the bulk of the volcanic deposits of which these rugged mountains are composed have a very low probability of containing gold ores. The Superstition Mountains are young geologic features (about 18 to 25 million years old) that were fored on an erosional surface of very ancient granite (about 1,400 million years old) and gold was found and has continued to be mined from these nearby coarse-grained granites. Indeed, that area is called the Goldfield Mining District. The Superstition Mountain Museum, which is located near both, has a 20-stamp rock crusher (20-stamp mill) that was used to crush gold ores, although in New Mexico rather than locally.

A bank of five of the twenty stamps have been made operational and are periodically operated my museum volunteers to demonstrate the processes that were used in the early 1900s to obtain gold from gold ore.

For more information about the museum and the stamp mill, see the following: http://superstitionmountainmuseum.org

For more information about the gold deposits and gold mining at this location, see the following: http://www.ecv5917.com/Articles/goldfield.html