The Peralta Mines

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cuzzinjack
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The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

Many intelligent people have searched for a lost mine(LDM), and their efforts are impressive. However, the much larger prize, the missing MINING DISTRICT (aka Peralta Mines) most-often takes a back seat to the LDM.

There are 2 items in the pile of data and accounts that describe a Mining District that deserve special attention (to some, this is preaching to the choir):

Number 1:

In 1893, the Phoenix Herald and Democrat printed an article about the new mining town of Goldfield, and a portion of it was as follows:

"Over on the north side of this wonderful mountain so peculiar in shape, standing like the ruins of some great walled city with its tall spires and huge monuments, there has been discovered an ancient mining camp. Whether this mining was done by the Indians and Mexicans of the last century, or whether the operations date back to years when de Vaca and Black Stephen started from the coast of Florida to find the goldfields toward the setting sun, may never be known. It is certain, however, that there are shafts and tunnels and drifts and stopes and the clearly-defined walls of a great mine. On the dumps are found tons and tons of rock which without doubt came out of these workings.”

Number 2:

The Manuel Alejandro Peralta Map: This particular Peralta Map surfaced relatively recently? and is posted on this site. Depicted are the mines or stopes in a mining district and the workers camps.

Across the top of the map is the title “Gvente de ona del Rio Salado Del Norte”.
The first word is “Gvente”, an older form of a Spanish/Portuguese word that is still used in Brazil. It is now the word “Gente”, which is Spanish for “people”. The third word is “Ona”, which in Latin means “district”. The rest is Spanish. The full translation would be “People of the District of the Salt River of the North.” Perfect.

At http://www.mollymarieprospect.com it is shown that there is a very large porphyry deposit with El Sombrero in plain sight (the “hat” view of Weaver’s Needle), and that an entire mining district, in a historic sense, could exist geologically. The website describes the peripheral gold deposits surrounding the copper-gold porphyry and their likely concentration by supergene processes. This is the ideal recipe for bonanza gold. No other reasonable theory or explanation is known to have been presented to-date from any source that meets the criteria for a Mining District geologically and/or in view of El Sombrero. As many know, there are several accounts and maps that describe just such a place.

In “Supergene Gold Deposits” by C.R.M. Butt, posted on mollymarieprospect.com, a typical saprolitic supergene deposit could be found as shallow as +/- 30 feet in depth and have 150 feet of vertical extent, but most often they will occur as a horizontal layer much thinner than that at or below the water table. An orebody of this type could be up to 100 feet or more in width, and longer still. What about an underground mining method that could be used efficiently and safely on supergene deposits where there was little or poor timber? In say, 1750? If there was a relatively thin horizontal deposit, say 6 feet thick, all that was needed were lots of posts, and these were readily available. If the orebody was thicker, or mushroom-shaped in cross-section, a method called “top-slicing” could have been used that can utilize the poor quality timber available (Palo Verde and Mesquite) and still allow for relatively safe mining conditions.

Where are the stopes? How could they avoid discovery? Where are the clearly defined walls described in the 1893 article?

As C.R.M. Butt describes, supergene orebodies are located beneath the bottom of drainages in known gold bearing formations and breccias. The west side of the Molly Marie prospect has an abundance of gold-bearing phreatic breccias and hydrothermally altered, gold-bearing arkose. Many of the clearly defined walls created by caving of the post-supported stopes and stopes using the top-slice mining method would be gone, but there is evidence that many may remain. Vertical subsidence is indicated above the suspected stoped-out areas in several of the drainages, two in particular. Some features that beg for attention:

• Curved vertical rock walls that give portions of an arroyo a much wider width
that does not appear to be fault related.
• Narrow notches in solid rock arroyo floors that appear to have been cut to allow
water to flow through a caved area where the arroyo floor has dropped upstream.
• Hummocky terrain next to arroyos indicating slow, sporadic caving, with much
larger trees than the surrounding area.
• Arroyo bottoms through the suspected areas that are not solid rock, but loose
material.
• Higher gold assays nearby the suspected stopes.
• Where the above occur in mineralized phreatic breccia zones.

Below is a link to a photo showing the suspected stopes:

http://mollymarieprospect.com/Diagrams/suspects.jpg

Am I saying “This is it”? No, but I’ll say there is a high probability that it is. Please check some of these places out for yourself; your feedback will be welcomed.

Sincerely,

Dan Welch
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Somehiker »

Dan:
Looks like you know a thing or two about rocks.Could be why comments have been slow to appear where you have posted the Mollymarie prospect story and links.I wouldn't judge the interest based on a lack of feedback,though.
I do have a few questions...............
Have claims been staked and registered?
Has the project stalled for some reason?
If so,is this because of lack of funding,denial of drilling permits or other roadblocks?

Regards:Wayne
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Oroblanco »

Tag post, thank you for sharing the info!
:mrgreen:
"We must find a way, or we will make one." --Hannibal Barca
cuzzinjack
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

Hi Wayne,

Thanks for commenting, and sorry the www.mollymarieprospect.com site is guided towards geologists, but there is no choice if I want to get their interest. The claims are indeed staked and registered. The project has not been stalled, and by own admission, it has taken an extended amount of time to learn the geology. I have not toured many geos through the property, but learned early on, before I knew much of the geology, that some of the not-so-reasonable explanations that were given by experts indicated something great could be there. So, I decided to keep paying my claim fees every year till I learned the rest of the geology, and this was an excruciating process. Once again, the claim fees are due September 1, and it is futile to think there would be any serious communication even months before that date. If the Molly Marie porphyry is anything like the Resolution property near Superior that is currently being developed, it can be worth 100’s of billions of dollars. The top of the Molly Marie porphyry is estimated to be at 1500 to 2000 feet in depth due to the abundance of phreatic breccia pipes(small clasts) and alteration (advanced argillic), and this is a common underground mining depth. The Resolution will be +/- 8000 feet, and this will be challenging at best.

A porphyry system like the Molly Marie can have a vertical extent of 3000 feet, so would require dozens of exploration drill holes of +/- 5000 feet deep to do the job right. I cannot purchase even one of these holes. But, the Molly Marie porphyry has something extra special…….a gold system overhead, in the arkose, of possibly incredible value. This is depicted on http://www.mollymarieprospect.com. Goldfield had drusy quartz in veins to indicate the late-stage gold emplacement, but at the Molly Marie, the drusy is found everywhere in the exposed arkose. There is also is a tremendous amount of arkose hidden beneath hydro-thermally altered basalt, which tattles on what is hidden below. Supergene processes have leached the surface gold, which has concealed the overall grade of the deposit, which can be up to 500 feet thick. Relatively shallow drill holes should indicate that this has occurred, blazing a path for other entities to follow. Then, it will be all about easy gold, leaving the capital-intensive copper for another time. We’ll see what happens after September 1.

Sincerely,

Dan Welch
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Somehiker »

Dan:
Looks like an uphill battle for anyone who might be interested in the purchase of your claim.Unlike Superior,Apache Junction is not a mining town,dependent on mining for it's survival.Even the Resolution development/BLM land swap has been a rocky road,despite the heavy hitters pulling for it.Apparently Bill HR1904,authorizing a land swap involving Apache Leap and Oak Flat is still before committee...
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z ... 01904:@@@X

Regards:Wayne
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

Hello Wayne,

Below are some photos of a special piece of pottery from the Molly Marie. It was found on the surface, and no holes were dug. By measuring and remeasuring, it is closely approximated that the piece came from a pot, and likely a "botijo", 30 inches in diameter. A botijo was a Spanish solar powered "refrigerator" that can cool water to 50F when working efficiently. The first view is of the inside of the sherd full of water. This was done to see how fast the water seeped through to the other side like it was supposed to with a botijo:

http://mollymarieprospect.com/sherds/inside.jpg

The next shot is of the outside of the sherd after a few minutes. A damp spot can be seen, but it was a hot day, a most dampness evaporated before the picture could be snapped. The experiment was very successful though:

http://mollymarieprospect.com/sherds/outside.jpg

The next shot is of the edge. This pottery is only 3/16" thick and unglazed:

http://mollymarieprospect.com/sherds/edge.jpg

Yesterday, I visited the place where this was found a couple of years ago, and another large piece had washed out in the tiny drainage. This spot is next to a large area that is as flat and clean as a parking lot. It is apparent that it has been "swept", but on the perimeter many pieces of the thin pottery can be found. These botijos had open tops, as pieces of rims have been found that had large diameters also. There are two areas where the sherds can be found almost a half-mile apart. All are thin like the pics and from very large pots. It there are any pottery experts out there, please comment......

Dan
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Somehiker »

Dan:
Your pottery shards are certainly an interesting find.Not being any kind of pottery expert,I did a little searching for descriptions and photos of botijos.They are,it seems,very close in size and shape to what are commonly referred to as ollas.Many botijos/ollas,made by peoples dating back to Mesopotamia are indeed of porous clay and unglazed,evidently to keep the contents cool.Thus your shards may be spanish,or yavapai,pima,or even Hohokum/Salado.If mexican,one would wonder how and how far such fragile pottery could be transported from it's place of manufacture?

Regards:Wayne
cuzzinjack
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

Hi Wayne,

The place of manufacture would have been somewhere near where the sherds were found, as the botijos would have broken often. In my research, I learned that the "technology" of the botijo was brought to the Americas by the conquistadors vs. other Europeans, because Spain had a low-humidity climate. The natives of the Americas did not have, or care to have, this technology till very late in the 1800's from what I've read. I have seen the pottery from many other native locations, and it does not to appear to be anything like this. Can anyone out there add to this subject?

Dan
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Cubfan64 »

I really don't know anything about dating pottery, but the shard looks quite a bit like the shards I've seen all over Garden Valley and other locations in the Superstitions.
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by pippinwhitepaws »

shards are everywhere.

ceramics were made, carried, stashed...where ever native populations were located.

the shard looks like sinagua...sin-agua...

large containers were buried, or left in shady places to cool and store water, or stash food.

that flat brown is everywhere in the southwest. many pieces were created just to destroy as religious offerings.

pottery was carried hundreds of miles as trade goods also.
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Somehiker »

Dan:
It's only a suggestion,but you might be wise to consult with a lawyer prior to presenting evidence which may encourage a claim to ownership by Peralta descendents or Dominion by Native Interests.It will only serve to complicate your legal standing.

Regards:Wayne
cuzzinjack
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

@Cubfan,

True, some in Garden Valley look the same in regards to color and texture, but the thickness combined with the diameter of the pot? If my memory serves me correctly, only small pieces are left, where a diameter estimation is not feasible.

@pippinwhitepaws(I'm honored, by the way)

I've seen many sherds, and certainly do not know them by name as you do. This subject bears serious consideration because the sherds from a Spanish botijo/Mexican olla&cantero would have been as common on the ground back then as pull-tops from beer cans were to us 40 years ago. Their delicate construction must have allowed for constant breakage, and they would have been used most everywhere. The thickness/diameter ratio and construction style should set the native and Spanish apart. The largest pot at the Casa Grande museum, (and it was found buried) has thicker walls than the piece posted. It would seem that no one in their right mind would waste their time making something so large and delicate back then except for one purpose: to allow water to pass through the walls and evaporate, and the large size would more effectively store the cold.

@Wayne,

About the Peraltas, that is an original concept, but I think they had better wait till after the reconquista. :) What is really odd, after walking a LOT of miles on the claims, there were not any stone tools, arrowheads, etc. found and not even jasper/chert flakes.

Sincerely,

Dan
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by Somehiker »

Dan:
I believe that there are direct descendents of the Peralta mining family,US citzens,living in the area.So what,exactly,are you saying that these botijo fragments prove?
How would the presence of such fragments expedite development your prospect?
The MMP website included a photo of what is described as a "Apache Medicine Hoop" and mentioned medicine bags as also discovered on site.What might that prove,and how can it help your project proceed?

Regards:Wayne
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by pippinwhitepaws »

not sure why you'd be honored cuz...but ok..thanks.

the information you posted is wonderful...and that stripe of azurite should lead to something wonderful...superior was a special ore body...and that color leads to riches.

good luck...after you establish ownership...can i see the site?

and i agree with your pottery theory...most people forget if 20 peralta's visited el norte, they had a following of around 1,000 native workers and bearers...and THEY made their pottery the old way...
cuzzinjack
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Re: The Peralta Mines

Post by cuzzinjack »

@Wayne:

I'm simply sharing what I've found with people that are intrigued by and interested in solving what has been called "the greatest unsolved mystery of the western U.S.". If everyone was to share all that they know about this, it would be the second greatest book ever written. This is FUN! I'm not getting lawyered-up for a distant relative of Manuel.

@Pippinwhitepaws:

I go out there almost every weekend, and have found it is worse in the morning with no breeze than late in the afternoon with a breeze and most often lately, clouds. Shoot me an e-mail to [email protected].

Dan
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