PETROGRAPHY OF REPLACEMENT MINERALS IN THE HORSESHOE DEPOSIT, HAILE GOLD MINE, LANCASTER, SOUTH CAROLINA

The venerable Haile Gold Mine in the Albemarle Sequence of the Carolina Slate Belt is currently in production under the Australian-based Oceana Gold Corp. Successful exploration by Canadian based Romarco Minerals Inc. began there in 2007. Although the deposit does not match traditional models, the Haile is a low-sulfidation disseminated gold deposit. The Horseshoe deposit, discovered in 2010 by Romarco, is unique in that it is of higher grade than the Palomino and Mustang Deposits, controlled at depth, and will be the only underground gold mined in the Southeastern US. This study addresses petrographic aspects of this deeper and higher grade deposit. Thin sections of samples from a transect across the ore boundaries and from the relatively high grade ore itself will be studied to address the following questions: (1) What types of mineral alteration border this deposit (i.e., seritization, chloritization, albitization) and how do they change with proximity to the deposit?, (2) Is the gold itself associated with particular sulfides? Relevant findings will inform exploration efforts of other Horseshoe-type deposits.