Wolverine Mine and Dump

 

The Wolverine Mine dump gives access to the flow top amygdaloid of the Kearsarge Flow, one of the large lava units of the PLV, and a productive 10 m thick amygdaloidal top which hosted at least seven other successful mines. The flow has been traced for 55 km along strike. Its top is fragmental with a cellular vesicular amygdaloid below, grading into a plagioclase porphyritic basalt and finally to an aphyric trap.

Minerals in the flow top are diverse and distributed heterogeneously in both space and time. Early minerals deposit on the walls of vesicles and later ones fill the voids, starting on the surface of earlier minerals.

Geologic cross section across the map above

Spatial distribution of amygdaloidal minerals in the flow top of the Kearsarge Flow, based on observations within the mine done by Stoiber and Davidson (1959). The hanging wall is the top of the mined area and nearly coincides with the contact between the flow top and the bottom of the flow above.

At Right:

A paragenetic diagram based on observations of many specimens of amygdaloid, where the vesicle coating sequences of minerals were observed. At Wolverine the chlorite was the earliest mineral and it is always outside of the others, while calcite was the latest, and is always inside.  This figure comes from Stoiber and Davidson (1959), who made such observations on many Keweenaw mine dumps.

Microcline and Epidote in Wolverine amygdaloid.























Wolverine Mine Dump

Jan Woerner

Jan Woerner

Stoiber and Davidson (1959)

Stoiber and Davidson (1959)

South Kearsarge Miners

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In Wolverine Mine

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