SMUGGLER MINE GOLD ORE
Gold-quartz hydrothermal vein - here's a nice gold ore sample from a quartz-gold vein in southwestern Colorado's Telluride Mining District. This is from the Smuggler Vein, which cuts through Oligocene- and Miocene-aged rhyolites, andesites, and volcanic tuffs of the San Juan Formation, a thick unit of extrusive igneous rocks in the San Juan Volcanic Field.
The Smuggler Vein is one of several mineralized veins developed along steeply-dipping fractures formed during volcanic-related uplift in the Silverton, Colorado area and the Stony Mountain, Colorado area. Uplift & fracture formation occurred during the mid-Oligocene, followed by gold mineralization during the late Early Miocene.
Geologic Unit & Age: Smuggler Vein, San Juan Volcanic Field, gold-quartz hydrothermal mineralization in the late Early Miocene, ~17 million years.
Locality: Smuggler-Union Consolidated Mine (Smuggler Mine), Telluride Mining District (a.k.a. Upper San Miguel District), eastern San Miguel County, southwestern Colorado, USA
(CSM # 54581, Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum, Golden, Colorado, USA)