Description of slides showing aeromagnetic and gravity data for regional mineral exploration in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona
Open-File Report
83-703
By: Douglas P. Klein
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Abstract
Examples of aeromagnetic and gravity data over 1? x 2? areas are presented for regions near the Cripple Creek mining area, Colorado, and the Lordsburg-Tyrone-Silver City mining areas, southern New Mexico and Arizona. These data indicate broad crustal structures and compositional variations that are marked by magnetization and density contrasts. The focus is on anomalies that may signal large-dimension controlling structures for the emplacement of economic mineral deposits. An example is a continuous, quasi-linear, north-trending gradient in both gravity and magnetic data located west of Cripple Creek area along long. 105? 30? W. This trend correlates with two mineral deposits of the Southern Rocky Mountains Front Range. It also correlates in part with an area of volcanic rock and with a mapped fault complex (Elkhorn-Currant Creek-Else-Westcliffe). The trend is interpreted to indicate a continuous crustal fault-system, although exposures of this system are discontinuous between areas of alluvium and volcanic-rock cover.
Similar geophysical trends exist in the Silver City to Tyrone area, where northeast-and northwest-trending anomalies appear to be marked by intrusion and mineralization. In this area, northwest-trending alluvial basins favor the use of geophysics to infer economically accessible but hidden bedrock whose association with exposed mineralization seems possible. An example of an inferred broad and relatively shallow, but hidden bedrock complex in association with more areally-limited mineralization is the Victorio Mountains area about 34 mi (55 km) south-southeast of Tyrone, New Mexico. The mineralization is within faulted sediments whose outcrop covers a small portion of the geophysical anomaly-complex.
Study Area
| Publication type | Report |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | USGS Numbered Series |
| Title | Description of slides showing aeromagnetic and gravity data for regional mineral exploration in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona |
| Series title | Open-File Report |
| Series number | 83-703 |
| DOI | 10.3133/ofr83703 |
| Year Published | 1983 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | U.S. Geological Survey |
| Description | Report: iv, 14 p.; 1 Plate: 36.00 x 58.84 inches |
| Country | United States |
| State | Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |