Metal Mining - Ore at Deep Levels in the Cripple Creek District, Colorado

More than 20 years have passed since the publication of Lindgren and Ransome's report on the Cripple Creek District,1 which was made when the district was much more active and prosperous than in recent years. They concluded that the output of the district, which had reached its maximum of about $18,200,000 in 1900, would gradually decline, and their conclusion has been confirmed by records of subsequent production. Between 1905 and 1915 annual declines were partly compensated by encouraging increases, especially in 1908, 1914, and 1915; but a rapid continuous decline followed, due largely to the war and its after-effect's, until in 1922 the value of output was only slightly more than $4,000,000. It rose to nearly $5,000,000 in 1924, but declined again in 1925 and in 1926, when it was about $4,400,000, and represented ores mainly from deep levels in the Cresson and Portland mines. The profitable operations of these two mines were the principal factors leading to a study of ore at deep levels in the district by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Colorado Metal Mining Fund. The principal reasons for Lindgren and Ransome's conclusion were three: (I) the greater cost and difficulty of deep exploration; (2) the decrease in the number of veins with increasing depth, and (3) the probability that the telluride ore, believed to have formed at comparatively low temperature, would not persist indefinitely in depth. Operations since they made these statements have verified the first two, but call for some modification of the third. Rich telluride ore is being mined at a profit in the Portland mine 3000 ft. below the present surface, 07. 5000 ft. below the original surface of the Cripple Creek volcano, as interpreted by Lindgren and Ransome. The question arises, therefore, as to the number and extent of such deep deposits, and the answer, so far as it can now be given, must be based mainly on structural data, supplemented by data on the processes of ore deposition. Presentation of these data based on a study of deep mines in the southeast quarter of the district, the only