Location This district is in central Plumas County in the general vicinity of Quincy, the county seat. It includes the Elizabethtown and Butterfly Valley areas. The Meadow Valley district lies just to the west and the Sawpit Flat district to the south. The district was first mined during the gold rush, and there has been intermittent prospecting and development work ever since.
Geology
The principal rocks that underlie the district are slate, mica schist, and quartzite. Greenstone lies to the northeast and serpentine to the southwest. American and Thompson Valleys are underlain by Recent and Pleistocene alluvium. A few isolated peaks in the area are capped by basalt.
Ore Deposits
Gold-quartz veins occur principally in slate and mica schist; some are as thick as 15 feet. The veins may be massive or consist of numerous parallel stringers. The ore contains free gold and varying amounts of sulfides, chiefly pyrite. Although some of the veins have been developed for horizontal distances of several thousand feet, none has been worked to depths of greater than a few hundred feet. There are a few small Tertiary channel gravel deposits to the south. The Recent and Pleistocene valley alluvium is gold-bearing in places.
Mines
Placer: Bushman, Carr, Cascade, Elizabethtown Flat, Imperial, Manhattan, Mill Creek, Newton Cons., Newton Flat, Riverdale.
Lode: Bell, Butterfly, Fairplay, Gold Leaf Cons., Homestake, King Solomon, St. Nicolas, Tefft, White Oak.
Bibliography
Averill, C.V., 1937, Plumas County, gold: California Div. Mines Rept. 33, pp. 103-124.
Lindgren, Waldemar, 1911, Tertiary gravels of the Sierra Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, pp. 111-113.
MacBoyle, Errol, 1920, Plumas County, Quincy mining district: California Min. Bur. Rept. 16, pp. 36-41.
Turner, H. W., 1897, Downieville folio, California: U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas of the U.S., folio 37, 8 pp.
