History and Development

History and Development: The only work which had been done on the magnesite in the Needles area prior to September 23, 1935, consisted of three small prospect pits on the Needles deposit. At that time, the California Chemical Company began an exploration program, during which sixty trenches were opened, and four diamond drill holes, totaling 157 feet, were drilled on the Needles deposit. All of the exploratory work was limited to an area of 60 acres which showed positive indications of magnesite. No further work was done on the Needles magnesite deposit until March 1943, when the property was leased to Mr. J. Lex Brown of San Bernardino, California. Machinery was brought to the property, and it was planned to mine the ore with a small power shovel. By April 1943, a small quarry had been opened, and one car of ore was shipped, after which operations are reported to have ceased.

Previous Work: The first geologic mapping of the Needles deposit was done in September 1935, by Gerald M. Kirwin, geologist for the California Chemical Co., during its magnesite exploration program. In December 1941, the property was examined and mapped by L. Fillaseta and H. Nye for Basic Magnesium, Inc., of Henderson Nevada. In March 1942, J.A. Vandergrift of Los Angeles, California, made a sketch map of the deposit and made chemical analyses of 27 selected samples for Defense Plant Corporation. None of the above reports were published since they were all confidential. The Needles deposit was briefly visited for the U.S. Geological Survey by Eugene Callaghan, John Loofbourow and Charles J. Vitaliano who was a Geologist for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey.

Field Work: During February and March 1943, Mr. Vitaliano and Alfred J. Bodenlos spent 5 weeks in the area mapping the Needles deposit on a scale of 1:2,400. Additional trenching was done, and samples were taken and analyzed. When Mr. Vitaliano revisited the area in July 1944 with Ian Campbell of the Division of Geological Sciences, California Institute of Technology, and Mr. Vandergrift, a small quarry had been opened in the magnesite at the Needles deposit.