Most all of the chromite deposits in Del Norte County are composed in type as pod and disseminated. The pod deposit being of virgin ore that can be recovered, separated and shipped as classified ore. Pod reclines usually occur in shear zones that range from a few feet square to several miles in rectangular length. Many elongated masses of chromite are of horizontal and parallel to specific trend of the shear zone and also may appear as a accentuated angle to the zone belt.
Much of the chromite deposits of Del Norte County are in type as disseminated and are saturated with chromite grains within the formation of dunite and serpentine. The greatest disseminated deposit is the Seird Creek and Mountain View deposit of eastern Klamath Mountains. Whereas, this chromite deposit and elsewhere in the Klamath Mountain Range, were syngenetically formed with the ultramafic rock engulfing everything in its range. The parent ultramafic magma became the extruder of crystallizing formation of all of the chromite, much of the olivine and petering-out of some pyroxene. Chromite resource deposits hold rank as the oldest mineral deposits in the Klamath Mountains Range because of its being syngenetic with ultramafic rock that precluded the formation of granitic rocks.
The Klamath Mountain Range hosted to many ancient rich gulches, bench, terrace placer gravel deposits in location along the Trinity and Klamath Rivers, Clear Creek and their hundreds of tributaries. Each of these water-runs invade the adjoining belts of western Paleozoic and Triassic rocks near the western Jurassic belt. Where both belts are intruded by serpentinized ultramafic rocks, gabbro, and plutons of dioritic to quartz dioritic formations.
The adjacent area is host to surface gossans of reddish brown, iron stained caps and striking knobs in pinnacles of porous lemonitecemented breccia. Weathering of the auriferous sulfide belt results in the composition of ferruginous gossan or iron-capping at the surface with enrichment in gold.
Eroded gold occurrences find their way by gravity influence to the nearest gravity drop and gang up into placer gold deposits. The destiny of the gold particles become the final surge to locate in the major and minor river runs in the Klamath Mountain Range. Pre-historic times dictated the eventuality of the concentration of all of the loose gold particles to succumb to the forces of weight vs, movement, times the slurry factor; thus the accumulation of gold into pockets, glory basins, rich ribbed bedrock and cavity holding pots.
