See also Cassia, Jerome, and Minidoka Idaho Counties Gold Production
Black Pine District
Commodities: silver, gold, zinc, lead, quicksilver
This district, accessible from several directions by roads, which are poor near the mines, has been known since 1880. Some ore was shipped from the Silver Hills mine about 1894, about 14 cars of unknown content from the Hazel Pine mine about 1914, and 6 cars of zinc carbonate ore from the Ruth mine during the World War. No other production is on record although intermittent development has continued until recently and other small shipments may have been made.
The ore deposits are irregular replacements in Brazer limestone, which have in part been guided by fractures. No igneous rocks crop out in the vicinity. The lodes may be epithermal deposits of mid-Tertiary age. The hypogene minerals include quartz, pyrite, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, jamesonite, caloite, barite, cinnabar, and realgar. Oxidation is shallow. The zinc carbonate ore mined during the war was bottomed within 12 feet of the surface. According to Anderson, the silver and gold content of the tetrahedrite offers the best hope for future development, with lead, zinc, and possibly copper as by-products.
Goose Creek District
Commodity: coal
This district contains lignite in Tertiary beds, reported to be of poor quality.
Stokes District
Commodities: lead, silver
Ore deposits have long been known in this district, which is nearly 40 miles from Burley on a branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, and a number of small shipments have been made, but as yet mining has been confined to small-scale operations and there appears to have been no production for over 10 years.
The lodes are mainly fissure fillings with some replacement in pre-Cambrian (?) quartzite and Carboniferous strata overridden by the quartzite along a thrust fault. Mineralization is believed to be related to the nearby stock of granodiorite regarded by Anderson as intruded at about the end of the Cretaceous. The valuable metals are lead and silver with subordinate amounts of gold and copper. The principal hypogene metallic minerals are tetrahedrite, pyrite, and chalcopyrite in a quartz gangue. Arsenopyrite, specularite and sphalerite are rare.
