INTRODUCTION TO
MINERAL-RESOURCE ASSESSMENT OF LUNA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO



Virginia T. McLemore, Kelly Donahue, Michael Breese, Meghan L. Jackson, Jeffrey Arbuckle, and Glen Jones 


Open-file Report OF-459

New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Socorro, New Mexico 87801


September 2001




Prepared for the New Mexico State Land Office




Introduction

	This report assesses the potential of mineral and energy resources (excluding aggregate and petroleum resources) on the surface and within the subsurface in Luna County in southern New Mexico for the New Mexico State Land Office. Resource potential is the likelihood for the occurrence of undiscovered concentrations of metals, nonmetals, industrial materials, and energy resources. The evaluation of mineral-resource potential involves a complex process based on geologic analogy of promising or favorable geologic environments with geologic settings that contain known economic deposits (geologic models; Cox and Singer, 1986). Such subjective assessments or judgements depend upon available information concerning the area as well as current knowledge and understanding of known deposits. This assessment will provide land managers with appropriate data to make land-use decisions. The project conforms to mineral assessment guidelines and procedures required by the U. S. Bureau of Land Management (Goudarzi, 1984). 
The report is organized into a document that describes the geology, mining history, mineral resources, and mineral-resource potential (Luna.pdf) and five appendices containing the data used to make the decisions regarding the mineral-resource potential. Appendix 1 contains a bibliography of Luna County and references cited in the report. Appendix 2 contains information on the mines, mills, and prospects in Luna County and is accessible in a paradox, access, excell, Acrobat, and Arc/View files. Appendix 3 contains the NURE geochemical data in Luna County and element distribution maps for selected elements and is accessible in Acrobat, excell, and Arc/View files. Appendix 4 contains the chemical analyses of mineralized, altered, and non-mineralized rocks collected from Luna County, including selected published data, and is accessible as an excell, Acrobat, and Arc/View file. Appendix 5 is an Acrobat file containing the geochronological data of selected samples dated for this project.
You must have Acrobat Reader to read these files. The data files also can be read by excell, access, paradox, and Arc/View. Start Acrobat Reader and open the Luna document (Luna.pdf).  After starting Acrobat Reader, refer to the built-in Help system to learn how to use the program or to resolve problems, if you encounter problems.  The Help system describes functions on the tool bar and drop-down menu items.  For the impatient, however, probably the most common function will be to advance to the next page or return to a previous page either by clicking the single arrowhead keys on the tool bar at the top of screen or "page down" or "page up" keys on the keyboard.  Use the slider bar on the right side of the screen to move up or down on the page.  You may also select magnification by one of the following: (1) clicking the "zoom-in" tool (looks like a magnifying glass with a "+" in it) on the tool bar and outlining the view, (2) select "view" on menu bar, or (3) click on keys on the bottom left screen.  After reviewing the built-in Help system, feel free to experiment with the icons and commands around the periphery of the report.  There are multiple ways to perform a function.  Don't worry about changing the contents of the report on the CD-ROM; it is locked.
To help you in navigating the report, text highlighted in color (yellow) indicates the location of a "link" button.  When the cursor is placed over such text, the cursor changes from an arrow to a pointing finger.  Clicking on a link button will display the selected table, figure, or appendix. To return to the same place in text, click on the left-pointing, double-arrowhead key in the tool bar. 
When you open the report, look at the Table of Contents in the column on the left side of the screen.  If the Table of Contents is not shown, click F5 or go to windows on the tool bar and click on Show Bookmarks. Each heading in the table represents a link.  Click on any entry to automatically display a selected page in the report.  By clicking on the arrowhead next to a Table-of-Contents heading, multiple entries nested within that main heading become visible and may be opened.
This CD also contains data form the report in an Arc/View format.  There is data from Appendix 2, Appendix 3 (NURE), Appendix 4, and base layers. This Arc/View Project can be opened directly from the CD using Arc/View 3.2.  For better performance copy the entire Arc/View directory to your
hard drive.  If you save the project after copying it to the hard drive you can not move the directory again.


Explanation of fields in Appendix 2

1. Identification number-consisting of a prefix representing the county followed by a unique number.
2. County-the county where the occurrence is located.
3. District-mining district or the geographical area as defined by File and Northrop (1966), North and McLemore (1986) and McLemore (2001). 
4. Mine Name-the name of the occurrence, prospect, mine, deposit, or mill as found in the literature; aliases are in parentheses.  Incorrect names are listed as aliases and unknown properties have no identification name.
5. Location-given in township, range, and section number.
6. Township.
7. Range.
8. Section.
9. Latitude.
10. Longitude.
11. UTM northing (in meters).
12. UTM easting (in meters).
13. UTM zone.
14. Location verified-comments on the accuracy of the location of the occurrence.
15. Commodities-those that are present at the locality. Commodities that were not produced from the mine and only occur are in parentheses.
16. Years of production.
17. Development-the extent of the development of the deposit described briefly.
18. Status-current operating status.
19. Production-amounts of production, as available.  Production figures obtained from references cited.
20. Mining methods-as available.
21. Ownership, as available.
22. Mineral survey number, if patented claim.
23. Patent number.
24. Year patented.
25. Mining history.
26. Host-the type and formation name of the host.
27. Rock type-(lithology) hosting the deposit.
28. Structure-briefly describes the structure and character of the deposit.
29. Mineralogy-briefly describes the mineralogy of the deposit.
30. Size-size of the deposit in area or volume.
31. Alteration-briefly describes the alteration associated with the deposit.
32. Type of deposit-characterizes the type of deposit according to McLemore (2001) and McLemore and Lueth (in press).
33. USGS classification-type of deposit according to Cox and Singer (1986).
34. USGS quadrangle-the name of the quadrangle map (7.5 of 15 minute) on which the deposit is located.
35. Elevation of the deposit.
36. Sample number of samples collected from the deposit.
37. MRDS number-USGS Mineral Records Data System.
38. Chemical analyses of samples collected from the deposit.
39. Comments-additional information, published maps or cross sections are cited.
40. Recommendations concerning the deposit.
41. References pertaining to the deposit.
42. Inspected by.
43. Date inspected.









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