Greenlee County Arizona Gold Production
By A. H. KOSCHMANN and M. H. BERGENDAHL - USGS 1968
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Placer mining was attempted several times in the Clifton-Morenci district, but the results were discouraging. The total recorded placer gold output is about 1,000 ounces.
ASH PEAK DISTRICT
The Ash Peak district is 12 miles west of Duncan. Records indicate that the deposits were exploited as early as 1907, but only silver was produced during these early operations (Elsing and Heineman, 1936, p. 93; V. C. Heikes, in U.S. Geological Survey, 1907, p. 161). Extensive development work was done in 1918 (Lines, 1940, p. 3), but the results appear to have been discouraging. Mining was resumed from 1936 through 1954, resulting in the recovery of 11,296 ounces of gold. The district was again inactive from 1954 through 1959.
The bedrock of the district consists of a series of rhyolite and andesite flows and tuffs cut by numerous dikes and volcanic plugs of diabase. The ore occurs in a vein that follows a dike intruded along a fault. The ore bodies are fairly continuous and consistent in grade and contain argentite in banded chalcedonic quartz, and varying amounts of calcite, rhodochrosite, pyrite. Lead and copper minerals occur locally. Gold, lead, and copper were produced as byproducts from the silver ores (Lines, 1940, p. 3-4, 24).