RESEARCH· ·1970·

crysts of white plagioclase, gray quartz, pink potassilPU
feldspar, and biotite make up about half the rock. The
remainder is a fine-grained granular ground-mass of
quartz, potassium feldspar, and a little plagioclase.
Primary accessory minerals include magnetite, apatite,
u.nd zircon.
The aplitic quartz monzonite (table 3, analysis 4) is
u. light-gray nplitic rock whose groundmass consists
ln.rgely of quartz, orthoclase, oligoclase, and biotite in
grains less thnn half a millimeter in diameter. Zoned
oligodase phenocrysts as muc;h •aJS 5 1nn1 long ·rund biotite
books 1-3 mm in diameter are fairly common, and
quartz "eyes" as much as 3 mm in diameter have been
observed but are 1nuch less abundant than in the adjacent
qunrtz monzonite porphyry. The accessory minerals
include magnetite, apatite, zircon, and sphene.
The quartz monzonite porphyry has been dated by
Creasey and· IGstler ( 1962) by the potassium-argon
method n.s 56 m.y. This age 1nay be too young, as the
rock is mineralized in tJhe Esperanza mine, and muscovite
from a muscovite-quartz-sulfide veinlet in this
mine has n potassium-argon age of 61 m.y. (Damon
and l\1auger, 1966)-very nearly the same age as the
granodiorite.
Bi•otite concen,trates and their cop.per conte•nt
The sample localities of the rocks from which the
22 biotite separates were made and the copper contents
of these separates are shown in figure 2. Two copper
values shown for n. single locality represent separate
samples collected tens of feet apart to test the possibility
of sporadic local variation in trace-element
content. ·
The biotite concentrates contain some mineral impurities,
both as discrete grains of foreign minerals
and as poikilitic inclusions of other minerals within the
biotite fiakes. The total content of such impurities in
the various mineral concentrates ranges from less than
5 percent to nearly 20 percent; however, none of the
concentrates contain any ·visible copper minerals.
The five samples from the equigranular border facies
of the granodiorite stock show no consistent features
that di,stinguish them from the 12 samples of porphyritic
granodiorite from the central part of the stock.
I-Iornblende is present as an accessory .mineral in two
of.the five concentrates frmn the border facies· but does
~10t appear in any of those from the porphyritic facies.
Zircon forms inclusions in biotite in 5 of the 12 concentrates
from the porphyritic facies but not in any
of the biotite from the· equigranular facies.
There is a suggestion of a color change in the biotite
of both rock types from north to south in this stock.
Most samples near the southern end of the pluton are'
LOVERING, COOPER, DREWES, AND CONE
B7
1noderate brown to dark brown; those from about a
mile to n.bout 3 miles north of the southern end tend
to be so mew hat lighter brown, and those from localities
more than 3 1niles to the north are olive brown or
1nixed olive brown and shades of light brown.
Biotite from the porphyritic granodiorite contains a
maxin1um of about 5 percent apatite, rutile, ihnenite,
hematite, sphene, and zircon as inclusions. Chlorite,
the most common accessory mineral in the concentrates,
ranges from 0 to about 10 percent of the sample. Minor
amounts of feldspar, hornblende, and sphene are also
present as accessory minerals in a few of the concentrates.
Biotite from the quartz monzonite porphyry and
aplitic quartz monzonite is moderate brown to dark
brown and contains as much as 10 percent of inclusions
of apatite, ilmenite, hematite, rutile, and zircon: Chlorite
constitutes as much as 10 percent of the mineral
concentrate, and minor amounts· of sphene occur in
two of the sam pies. ·
As shown in figure 2, the copper content of the biotites
displays a zonal patterri around the copper deposits.
The highest ·copper concentrations are· in the
biotite nearest the deposits, and anomalous concentrations
extend outward for as much a~ 2112 miles. These
very cupriferous biotites are mostly from quartz monzonite
porphyry and aplitic quartz monzonite, but they
include biotites from both the porphyritic itnd the
equigranular granodiorite. The lithologic diversity of
the samples high in copper content suggests that part
or all of this copper may have been introduced by
hydrothermal solutions at the time of mineralization,
or conceivably could have been introduced by later
circulating ground water. However, coarse hydrothermal
biotite from veinlets in diorite above the Sierrita
ore body' contains only 30 ppm copper. This biotite has
a potassium-argon age of 60 m.y. (S. S. Goldich, written
commun., 1964), the same age as that of the hydrothermal
mica from the ·Esperanza mine.
. · ·Th,e zonal pattern of copper concentration in the
biotite is also shown· by the copper concentration in
whole-rock samples, but it is less impressive (table 4).
The copper content of whole-rock samples from which
biotite was sep~rated for ~his s~udy is given in table 4.
CONCL·US1IONS
The copper content 9f primary bi~tit~ in several rock
types from southe~n Arizona ranges from a f~w parts
.per m!llion t~ 1 percei1t. The concentration of copper
in biotite ·from two differen.t bodies of the same. kind
of rock differs by more than an order of magnitude,
and it varies by three orders of magnitude within a
single large ore-related stock of granodiorite in the