A gold rush was initiated at Mockingbird during the 1980's, with many companies providing large amounts of exploration activity. Anaconda, who acquired the Mockingbird Project, focused exploration on the area east of the historic Mockingbird and Great West mines, and lying beneath the surface trace of the Mockingbird detachment fault.
Anaconda estimated a deposit of at least 10 million tons of .05 to 0.1 oz / T gold. This means the deposit is in the range of 500,000 to 1,000,000 ounces of gold, approximately the same size as Copperstone. This estimate does not include the additional vein material included in the earlier mentioned Wilkins Report. Joe Wilkins assessed the deposit for Gulf Mineral Resources in 1982 (see "Economic Geology of the Mockingbird Mine Area") and assumed a deposit of at least 500,000 tons at 0.1 oz / T from just the surface veins. The project was turned down as Gulf was of the opinion that the project was not big enough.
Next, Santa Fe Gold (now part of Newmont) acquired a claim block at the historic Mockingbird mine. Although their work showed anomalous gold in numerous samples, Santa Fe cancelled the project without drilling on the erroneous theory that the gold was largely found in veins and not in wall rock.
It is clear that in making this decision, the structural geology controls on the mineralization were poorly understood. This left the door open for Anaconda, which acquired two square miles of claims (all included in the Companies' land position). Anaconda geochemistry delineated numerous gold anomalies. A seismic survey confirmed that the detachment fault was largely horizontal under the eastern portion of their claim block.
There is little subsequent exploration history on the property. Arco (Anaconda's parent company) shut Anaconda down and abandoned the project. Chevron then staked the same area, did their geochemistry and selected drill targets. Chevron then merged with Gulf, and the combined unit was under the management of former Gulf personnel. As explained above, Gulf had previously turned down the project and now moved to terminate it. Western States next acquired the property for several years and apparently only did some trenching.
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