New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

The Organ Mountains in Southern New Mexico are host to a rich assemblage of minerals and many metallic ore deposits. A particularly rich trend of mineralization occurs in the northern part of the range along a series of faults called the Torpedo-Bennett fault zone. Copper porphyry-type deposits at the Torpedo mine in the northern reaches of the fault zone generated copper-zinc skarns immediately adjacent to the porphyry system (Lueth and McLemore 1998). One such skarn was mined for Cu at the Memphis Mine, just adjacent to the Torpedo. An outward trend continues along the faults from the porphyry and skarn, followed by Pb-Zn-Ag replacement deposits (Lueth and McLemore 1998). The Stevenson-Bennett mine is a historically significant mine probably most famous for its exceptional wulfenite specimens, and is an example of this type of Pb-Zn-Ag replacement mineralization within the fault zone. Both the ore minerals and gangue minerals will be described in depth from each of the three deposits, the Torpedo, the Memphis, and the Stevenson–Bennett.