Anyone worked with skarn?

[Boarteats]

Sorry, as things go, I received a pretty solid id soon after I posted question. Kinda wish there was a delete button for threads

Was thinking this could be skarn, but had someone much smarter than I am WRT rocks suggest that I was way off. Indicated that it very much looked like vuggy quartz. Gotta love the name.



Interesting additional info. Above-referenced acquaintance said that the presence of vuggy quartz and lots of white clays is suggestive of the area being an extinct high sulfidation epithermal system. To be certain, I need to find a couple other types of minerals (e.g., alunite). Haven't found references to high sulfidation epithermal systems in geologic info for this area. Either way, gives me another topic to read up on.

 

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[tamrock]

I've worked down below in a skarn contact zone in Silver City New Mexico at a underground mine called the Cobre mine. I've always believed a skarn was a particular geologic formation. Cobre sold out to Phelps Dodge and they immediately curtailed the underground operations and went with open pit mining. That was a sad day for me, as that ended a lot of business I did at that mine, but that's mining, here one day gone the next.

 

[Boarteats]

Tamrock, do happen to have any pics of the skarn derived material you worked with?

 

[tamrock]

That was in the 1990s as I wouldn't have had a camera in those days, but this link explains the mining region of SW New Mexico. https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/landmarks/chino_mine/home.html I do remember the rock was very heavy, with a lot of pyrite.

 

[tamrock]

Okay boarteats, I always knew the mine as Cobre, but looking in a bit further, it was the Continental mine owned by Cobre mining company. This link has a specimen of chalcopyrite from the Continental mine which I saw a lot of in that mine. Funny thing was the mine purchased a LHD loader with an 8 yard bucket and found out it couldn't lift anything over 5 yards of muck. Somebody sure didn't get all the figures right on that deal.
https://www.dakotamatrix.com/products/21190/chalcopyrite Look up Skarn Mineral Deposit on the net and find out what exactly it is and how it's formed. Your rock looks like pink granite with a green olivine layer to me.

 

[StreamlineGold]

Thats not skarn.

Really skarn is more or less when you have sedimentary rock in contact with igneous and the sedimentary is soaking up the mineralization..picture deep red iron rich material where limestone touches granite..