Bristol - Jackrabbit Mines

Site Name

Primary: Bristol - Jackrabbit Mines
Secondary: Snyder Shaft
Secondary: Black Shaft
Secondary: Bristol Silver
Secondary: Hillside
Secondary: Home Run
Secondary: Iron
Secondary: Gypsy Vein
Secondary: May Day
Secondary: National
Secondary: Tempest
Secondary: Vesuvius
Secondary: Detroit
Secondary: Jackrabbit
Secondary: Black Metals Mine

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Commodity

Primary: Silver
Primary: Copper
Primary: Lead
Primary: Zinc
Secondary: Gold
Secondary: Manganese

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Location

State: Nevada
County: Lincoln
District: Bristol and Jackrabbit Districts

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Land Status

Land ownership: Private
Note: the land ownership field only identifies whether the area the mine is in is generally on public lands like Forest Service or BLM land, or if it is in an area that is generally private property. It does not definitively identify property status, nor does it indicate claim status or whether an area is open to prospecting. Always respect private property.
Administrative Organization: Ely BLM Administrative District

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Holdings

Not available

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Workings

Not available

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Ownership

Owner Name: Kerr-McGee/Bristol Silver Mines Co.
Info Year: 2004

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Production

Not available

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Deposit

Record Type: Site
Operation Category: Past Producer
Deposit Type: replacement; fissure filling
Operation Type: Underground
Year First Production: 1870
Year Last Production: 1940
Discovery Year: 1860
Years of Production:
Organization:
Significant: Y
Deposit Size: M

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Physiography

Not available

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Mineral Deposit Model

Model Name: Polymetallic replacement

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Orebody

Form: irregular to tabular

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Structure

Type: R
Description: Thrust faults have displaced rocks on a regional scale.

Type: L
Description: faults; barren post-mineral faults

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Alterations

Not available

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Rocks

Name: Lamprophyre
Role: Associated
Age Type: Associated Rock
Age Young: Tertiary

Name: Diabase
Role: Associated
Age Type: Associated Rock
Age Young: Tertiary

Name: Porphyry
Role: Associated
Description: dikes
Age Type: Associated Rock
Age Young: Tertiary

Name: Limestone
Role: Host
Description: dolomitic
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Middle Cambrian

Name: Shale
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Middle Cambrian

Name: Shale
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Early Cambrian
Age Old: Middle Cambrian

Name: Limestone
Role: Host
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Middle Cambrian

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Analytical Data

Not available

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Materials

Ore: Galena
Ore: Chlorargyrite
Ore: Tenorite
Ore: Melaconite
Ore: Cuprite
Ore: Smithsonite
Ore: Azurite
Ore: Chrysocolla
Ore: Malachite
Ore: Sphalerite
Ore: Plumbojarosite
Gangue: Quartz
Gangue: Calcite
Gangue: Hematite
Gangue: Limonite
Gangue: Pyrite
Gangue: Clay

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Comments

Comment (Commodity): Ore Materials: galena, lead carbonate, secondary copper minerals, secondary zinc, plumbojarosite, manganese oxides, sphalerite, malachite, chrysocolla, azurite, smithsonite, cuprite, melaconite (tenorite), silver chloride

Comment (Commodity): Gangue Materials: pyrite (below 1700 ft)., limonite, hematite, calcite, manganese oxide, quartz, clay gouge

Comment (Deposit): Four main veins account for the bulk of the production in the Bristol District: the May Day, Tempest, Gypsy-National, and the Lead-Zinc veins. The ore bodies occur along fractured zones, in brecciated areas and in intersecting fissures. The main fissure system (the May Day) runs E-W. The Tempest also runs about N80E, but the Tempest dips 70E, while the May Day dips 45E. The Gypsy-National system strikes NE and dips 70-85E, and the Lead-Zinc vein strikes NW and is vertical. The latter two veins intersect the Tempest and May Day fissure, and oxidized ore occurs in large brecciated zones at these intersections. Sulfide ore is rare, but sometimes occurs as "nodules" with galena cores encased in cerussite, coated by carbonate with a film of copper oxide. Bedding contacts and flat bedding thrusts often localize ore deposition. Orebodies are very irregular in size and shape. Ore is very soft. Some of the larger orebodies developed at intersections of the May Day and Tempest fissures. Stoping was almost continuous from the May Day collar to the 1000 level of the Snyder shaft. Several strongly brecciated zones near faults carry high-grade copper and lead ore with silver. At the Black Metal Mine, the ore system consists of a vertical pipe from which replacement oreobdies extend out laterally at 3 horizons into the gently-dipping limestones that enclose the pipe. The pipe is localized by brecciation at structural intersections. Lead-silver ore occurred in the center of the pipe with exterior zones progressively higher in manganese and lower in lead and silver.

Comment (Identification): This record is a new record that includes all material from earlier MRDS record M242423 as well as additional information from records on adjacent properties and new information.

Comment (Economic Factors): Total production of the district is estimated at about $2,000,000 to $6,000,000. The Bristol Mines were sporadically productive from the 1870s to 1940, producing at various times silver, lead, copper, manganese, gold, and zinc. There was no doubt much more production than officially recorded from the Bristol-Jackrabbit Mines. Production from 1881 to 1940 was 252,553 tons of ore valued at $2,541,774. From 1924-1955 the Bristol Mine alone produced 4,433,800 ounces of silver, 22,722,100 pounds of copper, 35,943,800 pounds of lead, 40,570,800 pounds of zinc. Production during the years 1940-41, and 1945-47 from 45,620 tons of ore was, 391 ounces of gold, 652,478 ounces of silver, 2,910,521 pounds of copper, and 3,604,264 pounds of lead. The remaining reserves of the vein system deposit are unknown.

Comment (Geology): Host rock is dolomitic limestone, both massive and thin-bedded, with shale below 1700 feet.

Comment (Development): Discovery of the Bristol deposits probably dates to pre-1870, about the time that the Pioche depsits were discovered a few miles to the east. Prior to 1872, the town of Bristol Well or Bristol City sprang up on the western flank of the Bristol Range below the mines. Charcoal ovens near Bristol Well attest to early production. A furnace was built at Bristol City about 1872 to treat silver ore from the Bristol mine and a 5-stamp mill was built in 1880. About 1890, a new smelter was built and Bristol's population was about 400. Mining activity ended in 1893 and Bristol declined until 1900, when a leaching plant was built to recover copper from the ore, but that endeavor was not very successful and Bristol declined. The discovery of the Jack Rabbit District on the eastern slope of the Bristol Mountains is attributed to the locator picking up a rock to throw at a jackrabbit and finding it to be high grade silver ore. The district was located in 1876 by Isaac Newton Garrison. Within months the camp, at one time named Royal City, had a store, saloon, boarding house and restaurant. Early mine production was about ten tons per day, carrying native silver in flakes, yielding about $40 per ton-sometimes as high as $2000 per ton. Total production of the district is estimated at about $2,000,000 to $6,000,000. Mine production declined during the 1880's, but when a fifteen-mile narrow gauge railroad was opened in 1891 between the Jackrabbit mine and Pioche, mineral production soon increased. After 1893 the mines fell silent until after the turn of the century. In the early 1900s, the Day-Bristol Consolidated Mining Company owned and operated the main Bristol silver mines and in 1914 built a 2-mile aerial tramway from the main workings on the western crest of the Bristol Range to the railroad terminus at Jackrabbit on the east flank of the range. Bristol Silver Mines Co. was organized in 1919 and they purchased the Jackrabbit-Pioche narrow gauge railroad. Prior to 1926, Bristol operated with gasoline engines, then diesel engines connected to generators until 1937 when electrical power was obtained from the Boulder Pioche Powerline. Production at that time was 3000 tons/month. Bristol Silver Mining Co. owned most of the property in the district for some time during the most productive years of the district, the 1920s-1940s. In 1942 the company?s property consisted of 638 acres of patented land and 1222 acres of unpatented land. Kerr-McGee Corp./Bristol Silver Mines owned the properties in the 1970s and until the current time (2004) NDOM personnel assisted Kerr-McGee Corp. with AML fencing documentation at the Bristol and Jackrabbit mines in 2004

Comment (Location): The Bristol-Jackrabbit Mines are scattered over a few square miles in the north end of the Bristol Range northwest of Pioche. The Jackrabbit mines were on the eastern side of the range,and the Bristol mines were just over the crest of the range a few miles to the west, but after an aerial tram was built in 1914 to bring ore from the Bristol mines down to the railroad at Jackrabbit, the histories and production of the two areas were linked. Many of the Bristol mines are connected by underground workings (Snyder, May Day, Gypsy). Mines are located on both sides of the crest of the Bristol Range, with the larger and more productive mines on the west side.

Comment (Workings): The Bristol Mines were developed by extensive underground workings. These included the May Day shaft, tunnel, and cross cut; the main Snyder shaft on a 70S incline to 1780 feet in the 1940s; and the vertical Gypsy Shaft. Major stopes are the Dave Fox stope, Bingham Canyon stope, Bonanza stope, Cave stope, and Perry stope. A 2-mile aerial tramway was built from the main workings on the west crest of the Bristol Range to the railroad terminus at Jackrabbit on the east flank of the range.

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References

Reference (Deposit): Westgate, L.G. & Knopf, A., 1952, Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Pioche District, Nev., USGS Professional Paper 171, p. 71.

Reference (Deposit): NBMG Open File 175, Item 6; File 171, Item 3, Item 17 (Map Of Workings)

Reference (Deposit): Anderson, J.C., 1922, Ore Deposits of the Pioche District: Eng. and Min. Jour. vol. 113, no.7., p.285

Reference (Deposit): NBMG District File 171, Item 2, 1924, report by G.W. Crane

Reference (Deposit): Hill, J.M., 1916, USGS Bull 648, p. 134-135

Reference (Deposit): NBMG Mining District File 171, item 3 (unpublished report by Coleman, Gemmill, & Buehler) (1940s); item 6 (map of workings), items 12,13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

Reference (Deposit): Coleman, H.S., 1943, Bristol Silver Mines Co., Mining Congress Journal, July, 1943; NBMG Mining District File 171, item 11

Reference (Deposit): Weed, W.H., 1922, The Mines Handbook, Vol. XV, p. 1152-1153

Reference (Deposit): Mineral Resources of the U.S., 1908, pt. 1, p. 493; 1909, pt. 1, p. 416-417

Reference (Deposit): Long, K.R., DeYoung, J.H., Jr., and Ludington, S.D., 1998, Database of significant deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc in the United States; Part A, Database description and analysis; part B, Digital database: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-206, 33 p., one 3.5 inch diskette.

Reference (Deposit): NDOM activity report for 2004.

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Nevada Gold

Nevada has a total of 368 distinct gold districts. Of the of those, just 36 are major producers with production and/or reserves of over 1,000,000 ounces, 49 have production and/or reserves of over 100,000 ounces, with the rest having less than 100,000 ounces. Read more: Gold Districts of Nevada.