Project Summary
Historical USGS estimate of 25,000 tons of tactite in the main ore body, said to average 0.5% WO₃ and identified another area that could expand that estimate. USGS geologists described the ground as “probably the most promising tungsten claims of the district.” Sampling in 1982 returned tungsten values of 0.05-0.10% across eight samples, with a screened high-grade fraction assaying 0.25%, alongside silver values.
The Flying Cloud project, historically the Oddie and Siri Giovanni claims, is located on the crest of a ridge about 7 miles south of Hawthorne, Mineral County, Nevada, at an elevation of about 7,600 feet. Coordinates: 38.409458, -118.634133.
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Geology
Contact-metamorphic scheelite mineralization hosted in metamorphosed sediments within the granodiorite of the Wassuk Range. The main ore body caps the ridge and dips about 30° toward Willow Creek, standing out prominently with steep walls like a capping of basalt. In outcrop it is rudely elliptical, about 200 by 130 feet, and approximately 10 to 20 feet thick as estimated from the outcrop and from a tunnel cut through it near its center, figures from which the USGS estimated the body contains 25,000 tons of tactite, said to average 0.5% WO₃. On the opposite side of the ridge, a detrital mass of tactite blocks as much as 20 feet thick contains a considerable tonnage, possibly as much as the body in place, and has been prospected by shafts and tunnels.
History
The east slope of the Wassuk Range saw considerable prospecting for gold, silver, copper, and other metals in early years. The Flying Cloud ground was held by Senator Oddie and Siri Giovanni, and by 1921, when the USGS described it in its national study of contact-metamorphic tungsten deposits, a tunnel had been driven through the main ore body into the granodiorite near its center, and the detrital body had been prospected by shafts and tunnels. The USGS singled these out as probably the most promising tungsten claims of the district.
In January 1982 the property was re-sampled: Central Nevada Mining Lab returned tungsten values of 0.05 to 0.10 percent across eight samples (FC 1-8), with a screened high-grade fraction of FC 4 assaying 0.25 percent, and a companion assay sheet from Walker Lake Mineral, Inc. returned silver values up to 1 oz/ton on claim samples and 8.9 oz/ton on select metallic material. The historic 0.5% average was reported for the 25,000 ton body as a whole, which has been opened only by a single tunnel.