| Basis for focus area |
Polygon around mining district as defined by MRDS records. Barite deposits of the Kings Creek district are in a belt a few miles wide in York and Cherokee counties. Deposits occur in the so-called Carolina Barite Belt that extends for about 20 miles from Crowders Mountain, 4 miles east of Kings Mountain in adjacent North Carolina, southwestward to near the junction of South Carolina Highways 103 and 105, about 5 miles east of Gaffney, South Carolina. |
| Identified resources |
Indicated reserves of barite; historical production of barite. |
| Production |
Kings Creek mine produced about 400,000 short tons of barite from 1910 to 1953, and 32,800 short tons from 1953 to 1966 (Horton, 1989b). |
| Status |
Past mining; no known current mining. |
| Estimated resources |
Barite reserves at the Kings Creek mine probably exceed 500,000 short tons. Reserves of the entire belt are unknown but probably exceed 1 million short tons (Horton, 1989b). |
| Geologic maps |
Horton (1987), scale 1:250,000; Goldsmith and others (1988), scale 1:250,000; Horton (2008), scale 1:24,000. |
| Geophysical data |
Inadequate Rank 4 aeromagnetic and Rank 5 aeroradiometric coverage. |
| Favorable rocks and structures |
Barite veins and replacement; discontinuous veins and replacement masses in a quartz-sericite schist. |
| Deposits |
Kings Creek mine (MRDS dep_id: 10078196), West Hill mine (MRDS dep_id: 10078197). |
| Evidence from mineral occurrences |
MRDS. |
| Geochemical evidence |
Mined ore composed of chalcopyrite, sphalerite and barite with waste material consisting primarily of quartz and sericite. The ore body is described as tabular shaped and 0.06 meters (0.20 feet) thick. The host rock in this area is schist. Barium anomaly in soil. |
| Geophysical evidence |
Unknown. |
| Evidence from other sources |
Geologic mapping. |
| Cover thickness and description |
Exposed bedrock to thin cover. |
| Authors |
Nora K. Foley, Bernard E. Hubbard, J. Wright Horton, Jr. |
| New data needs |
Geophysical data, geologic mapping, and geochemical analyses. |
| Geologic mapping and modeling needs |
1:24,000 scale geologic mapping. |
| Geophysical survey and modeling needs |
High resolution aeromagnetic and aeroradiometric coverage. Aeromagnetic data expected to image mafic rocks and associated structures, radiometric data can help with geologic mapping in vegetated terrane; alteration may be imaged. Electromagnetic methods may help image sulfides. |
| Digital elevation data needs |
Lidar complete. |
