Crowders Mountain PoInt of Interest
Wavy Mine Test Pit

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Name: Wavy Mine Test Pit
Type: Man-made test pit mine (just above the Wavy Mine)
GPS Coordinates: Latitude:  N 35° 14.027'
Longitude:  W 081° 16.620
Elevation:  1810? ft - I think a bad GPS reading
Orientation: Open
PoInt Reached From: Medium-length (100 yards?) faint trail down from a switch-back near top of Tower Trail
Description: Small cut in rock
Dimensions: about 10 feet across and 3 feet wide, about 4 feet deep
Interior Features: Fairly vertical walls, with a couple of "pockets" in one side
Exterior Features: About 50 feet above and to right of the Wavy Mine Shaft

It is likely that this mine is the following:
(data gathered from mindat.org)
Crowders Mountain Kyanite Prospects, Kings Mountain District, Gaston Co., North Carolina, USA

REF:Analytical Data:: ESPENSHADE, 1960 ; SAMPLE NO. NG - 437

Deposit: ESPENSHADE,G. H., AND POTTER, D. B., 1960 , KYANITE, SILLIMANITE, AND ANDALUSITE DEPOSITS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN STATES, USGS, PP. 336 , TEXT 121 P., GEOL. MAP AT 1:24,000 , MINE TEXT P. 88-89

Commodities: (Major) - Quartz, Kyanite

Deposit Type: Stratabound

Development Status: Occurrence

Structure: Ne Trending Folds And Faults, Nose Of North-Plunging South Fork Anticline

Host Rock: Schist

Tectonic Structure: Strongly Folded Beds

Map Reference:
Latitude & Longitude (WGS84): 35° 13' 59'' North : 81° 16' 35'' West
Latitude & Longitude (Decimal Degrees): 35.2330555556 : -81.2763888889
Latitude & Longitude (Degrees plus Decimal Minutes): 35° 13.9833333333': -81° 16.5833333333'

Mineral List:

No entries listed.

CM Kyanite Prospect
Iron ores of North Carolina: a preliminary report By Henry Benjamin Charles Nitze
see book pgs 107 - 110 for info on mines at Crowder's Mountain

excerpts:
pg. 108
======

Crowder's mountain lies about 3 miles slightly northeast from the town of King's Mountain.  On the northern end of this mountain, 350 feet above the level of Crowder's creek, is an outcropping of magnetic iron ore.  The bed is exposed by a cut into the hillside and shows the following section:

<pic>

The vein matter measures about 12 feet in thickness; it is a hard siliceous, magnetic ore, and contains minute particles of garnet in the gangue.  On the outcrop it is partially hydrated, and covered with a thin coating of brown hematite in places; and the origin of occasional particles of brown hematite found on the slope of the mountain below this pit can probably be traced to this source.  The strike of the country rock in N. 45deg E., and the dip is about 80deg southeast.


pg. 109
=====
  The inferiority of this ore is apparent; it is too high in silica to be of any commercial value.
  The outcrop is traced with difficulty for a short distance up the slope of the mountain, when it soon disappears under a heavy coverings of sandstone and porphyritic minette of yellowish red color (a rock composed of a felsitic micaceous matrix containing small crystals of orthoclase).
  About 125 yards southeast from this opening, near the backbone and toward the summit of the ridge, a rather profuse showing of float ore, brown hematite, in places manganiferous, makes its appearance over a small area.  An old prospect tunnel may be seen here, driven 50 feet in the decomposed sandstone rock, but without discovering the ore body.  A short distance above the mouth of the tunnel the ore has been cut by a test pit, showing up 3 feet in thickness between sandstone walls.  The strike is N. 20deg E., and the dip nearly vertical, inclined if any towards the southeast.  The quality of the ore is indicated by the following:

<table>

Towards the southwest the outcrop can be traced but a short distance, soon disappearing under the heavy covering of sandstone.  On examing the western slope of the ridge, about 150 yards from the above point, an outcrop of brown hematite is again met with, similar to that just described; here also it crops out under a heavy covering of sandstone, which appears to dip at a moderate angle towards the southeast, thus pointing to a folded structure.  As far as exposed the ore was 2 feet in thickness, but there were no openings from which to determine its true extent.  The analysis of an average sample shows it to be richer in iron than the preceding, though very high in phosphorus.

<table>

The outcrop can be traced in a northeasterly direction along the slope of the ridge for several hundred yards.  About 75 yards southwest from the opening for brown hematite on the summit of the mountain, a body of magnetite has been exposed by an opencut, measuring

pg. 110
=====
5 feet in thickness between sandstone walls.  Strike N. 35deg E., dip from 70deg to 80deg N.W.  The character of the ore is a gray magnetite in a gangue of white decomped feldspar.  Thirty feet from here a prospect shaft has been sunk to a depth of 25 feet, but shows nothing of interest; a crosscut from the bottom of this shaft in a northwesterly direction should cut the ore body.  The quality of the ore is apparent from the following analysis:

<table>

Other analyses of ores from this part of Crowder's mountain show:

<table>

This table shows a great variation, from high grade Bessemer ores to practically worthless ferruginous sandstone (Nol 230).  Most of the ores show a trace of titanic acid, but not enough to impair their value.  The lack of development is apparent, and there may be valuable deposits of ore here that have not been yet discovered; at any rate the region is worthy of investigation.

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