Live Oak pit, Inspiration Mine, Miami-Inspiration deposit, Inspiration, Miami-Inspiration Mining District, Gila County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Live Oak pit	Pit (Swallowed up by other workings)
Inspiration Mine	Mine
Miami-Inspiration deposit	Deposit
Inspiration	- not defined -
Miami-Inspiration Mining District	Mining District
Gila County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

A former surface and underground Cu-Mo-Au-Ag-Pb-Zn-PGE (Rhenium) mine located in secs. 23-26 & 35, T1N, R14E; and in secs. 19 & 30, T1N, R15E, N of Miami, 6 miles (ca. 10 km) WNW of Globe, on private land. Discovered 1872. First produced 1910. Miami and Inspiration are part of the same orebody, though owned by different companies. Miami is E of Inspiration. Former operators include the Inspiration Copper Co. (1908) on the Joe Bush, Scorpio and Bulldog shafts and Woodson, Columbia, Taylor Clipper, and Bulldog adits; Live Oak Development Co., consolidated in 1912 to form the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co.; Keystone Copper Co. (1915); Miami Copper Co.; and the Tennessee. Owned and operated by the Cyprus Copper Co. (1991).

Located at the western part of the mineralized area at Inspiration, near Miami. The Live Oak Copper Mining and Smelting Co. was organized in 1898 to develop a group of four claims owned by J.J. Marshall. Operations were resumed in 1905 and continued until 1907. Since 1909, the history of this property is concerned with the exploration and development of the Miami-Inspiration orebody.

Mineralization is a copper porphyry deposit hosted in the Precambrian Pinal Schist. The ore zone is 3,657.6 meters long, 762 meters wide, 274 meters thick, strikes N55E, dips N and plunges SW. The supergene enriched zone averages 200 feet (ca. 61 m) thick. Higher grade mineralization occurs as bands along the Miami and Pinto faults between the Joe Bush and Bulldog faults. Molybdenite was the last stage of hypogene mineralization. Rhenium occurs in the molybdenite. Ore control involved schistosity (N50E, dipping steeply SE) which controlled intrusion of the Schultze Granite and hydrothermal solutions that deposited primary sulfide minerals. Alteration included silicification, sericitization, biotitization, hydration, argillization, and orthoclasation. An associated rock unit is quartz monzonite.

Mineralization also involves the copper silicate Live Oak vein. All outcrops of this vein have long since been obliterated by caving operations of the Inspiration Mine. The vein occupied a fissure in the sill-like body of granite porphyry facies of the Schultze granite that overlies the schist in the western segment of the Miami-Inspiration disseminated copper deposit. The chrysocolla was undoubtedly deposited by supergene solutions that collected in the fissures and contained copper leached from the surrounding rock.

Area structures include an E-trending fault zone through the shaft parallel to the Barney Fault 300 feet (ca. 91 m) NW. The low-angle Bulldog Fault and the Miami Fault both cut the area into distinct pieces.

Workings included the original 160 feet (ca. 49 m) deep shaft sunk by Marshall, the old Miami underground workings; open pit. The workings overall are 762 meters long, 914.4 meters wide and 304.8 meters deep. This deposit is credited with production of 2,890,000 pounds (ca. 1,311 ton) of Cu. Miami East was under development (1980) with planned production of 2,000 t/day. In 1989, Miami was an open pit Cu oxide mine with heap and dump leaching, as well as solvent extraction.

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Link to USGS MRDS:	10027438

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