MAGNETIC AND VLF-EM SURVEYS OF THE MOGOLLON MINING DISTRICT, CATRON COUNTY, NM: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE MINERAL EXPLORATION

The Mogollon Mining District is located in southwestern New Mexico within the Mogollon-Datil volcanic field, approximately 90 kilometers north of Silver City, NM. Mogollon was the most profitable volcanogenic-epithermal mining district in New Mexico, producing more than 20 million ounces of silver and 300,000 ounces of gold in its 40-year production history. Several mining companies continue to hold mining claims within the Mogollon district, with the hopes of discovering new silver and/or gold mineral concentrations. While silver in the form of sulfides and gold are the main elements of interest, copper and iron sulfides are dominant sulfide minerals within the hydrothermal veins of quartz and calcite. In order to delineate the location of the mineral-rich hydrothermal veins, we performed a detailed ground magnetic and very low frequency electromagnetic (VLF-EM) survey. We hypothesize that the VLF-EM surveys will better identify buried vertical electrical conductors better than the magnetic data, and that any known sulfide-rich veins within the district will have a distinct electromagnetic signature that can be used to correlate other unknown veins.

Here we present new magnetic and VLF-EM data of the Mogollon Mining District to explore their potential uses in mineral exploration in an old mining district. The surveys focus on areas of known mineralization in the mining district and also faulted regions with no apparent mineralization. Preliminary surveys show that the magnetic technique is useful in identifying lithology changes, while the VLF-EM technique is useful in identifying concealed veins. While the Queen Vein consistently appears in the results, smaller mineralized veins are less consistent, which could hinder exploration.