UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

J. A. Krug, Secretary

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

W. E. Wrather, Director

Bulletin 953-B

MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF 

THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI

BY

E. N. Goddard, L. S. Gardner, and W. S. Burbank

Geologic Investigations in the American Republics, 1945 

(Pages 27-52)

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

WASHINGTON : 1947

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington ^25. D. C.

Price 15 cents

CONTENTS

Page

Manganese deposits of the Republic of Haiti, by E. N.

Goddard, L. S. Gardner,, and W. S. Burbank.............. 27

Abstract............................................. 27

Introduction and Acknowledgments...................... 28

Manganese deposit at Morne Macaque, near Gros Morne,

Republic of Haiti, by E. N. Goddard and L. S. Gardner.. 29 

Introduction......................................... 29

Location and accessibility.-...................... 30

Labor and transportation......................... 30

Geology.............................................. 32

General relations................................. 32

Local geology.................................... 32

Structure and character of the fault......... , .33

Manganese deposit.................................... 34

Origin'of the deposit............................ 35

Grade of ore-..................................... 37

Reserves............................................. 38

Conclusions. .......................................... 39

Manganese prospects in the region north and northwest

of Jacmel, by. E. N. Goddard and L. S. Gardner.......... 41

Introduction......................................... 41

Vicinity of Trouin................................... 43

Area north of Jacmel................................. 44

Manganese prospects bordering the Mohtagnes de la Hotte,

by W. S. Burbank....................................... 47

Introduction......................................... 47

Manganese showings north of Les Coteaux.............. 48

Locality between Chardonnie*res and Les Anglais....... s 49

Localities east of Anse d'Hainault.................... 49

General conclusions on the origin of the manganese 

and Jasperx in the Southern Peninsula, by W. S. 

Burbank and E. N. Goddard............................... 51

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Plate 10. Index map of the Republic of Haiti............ 30

11. A, Photograph of Morne Macaque, looking 

south from a low divide. Manganese 

deposit is on hill at left; B, Specimen from trench No. 2, showing Oligocene 

limestone enclosing brecciated manganese 

oxides ........ % ............................ 32

12. Geologic maps and sections of the east

slope of Morne Macaque, near Gros Morne,

Republic of Haiti.......................... 34

III
IV ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Plate 13. Outcrops of siliceous manganese vein

(black bayate), -Morne Macaque manganese 

deposit. A, Fifty-ton boulder at head 

of trench No, 1; B, Outcrop at head of 

trench No, 2............................... 36

14. Cross sections of the manganese vein 

exposed in trenches, Morne Macaque 

manganese deposit-, near Gros Morne, 

Republic of Haiti.........................'. 38

Figure 3. Index map of the region between Gonalves 

and Gros Morne, Republic of Haiti, 

showing location of the Morne Macaque 

manganese deposit.......................... 31

4. Geologic reconnaissance map of the region 

between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, 

Departement de 1'Quest, Republic of Haiti.. 42

TABLES

Page

Table 3. Analyses of manganese ore from the Morne.

Macaque manganese deposit.................. 39
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI

By E. N. Goddard, L. S. Gardner, and W. S. Burbank

ABSTRACT

The manganese deposits of the Republic of Haiti were studied 

by the U. S. Geological Survey during the winter of 1941-42 in 

connection with strategic mineral investigations. Early reconnaissance work showed that three widely scattered areas merited 

further study: (1) the area near Gros Morne in northwestern 

Haiti; (2) the region north and northwest of Jacmel in the eastern part of the Southern Peninsula; and (3) the region bordering 

the Montagnes de la Hotte in the western part of the Southern 

Peninsula.

On the east slope of Morne Macaque, about 4-jjs- miles south of 

Gros Morne, is a small manganese deposit that merits further 

exploration. It is associated with a strong northwest-trending 

fault more than 15 miles long which forms the west side of an 

extensive graben block. On the west side the fault is a thick 

series of volcanic rocks of Cretaceous (?) age capped by Eocene 

conglomerate and limestone. On the east side is Oligocene (?) 

limestone grading eastward into undoubted Oligocene claya, marls 

and limestones. These beds dip steeply to moderately northeast. 

The manganese deposit occurs in the fault zone associated with a 

large lenticular body of black, brown, and yellow jasper, called 

"bayate" in Cuba. This bayate body is about 800 feet long, has 

a maximum width of 25 feet,.and stands up in prominent outcrops. 

The black bayate is intimately banded with seams and lenses of 

manganese oxide; on the east side of the zone.is an irregular 

pockety vein of rather high grade manganese ore from 1 to 6 feet 

wide and possibly as much as 15 feet wide. The vein is composed 

of a mixture of pyrolusite, manganite, and some wad. On the west 

side of the black bayate zone there is a narrow vein of manganese 

oxides a few inches to 18 inches wide. 'Only small amounts of the 

manganese oxides are associated with other bodies of bayate in 

this area.

Available evidence seems to indicate that the deposit had a 

similar origin to those of Cuba; the manganese oxides and associated bayate were apparently deposited contemporaneously with the 

adjacent limestones and were dragged up along the fault. However, 

there was considerable reworking of both manganese and silica by 

waters circulating along the fault plane. On the basis of exposures in and samples taken from exploratory trenches, it is 

estimated that the deposit contains 6,000 'tons of indicated 

(probable) ore averaging 40 percent of manganese and about 33,750 

tons of highly siliceous ore averaging 20 or 25 percent of- manganese.

27
28

In the'eastern part of the Southern Peninsula, 6 to 12 miles 

north and northwest of Jacmel, there are a number of localities 

where small amounts of manganese oxides are associated with 

brown to yellow jasper or bayate. Some of these bayate bodies 

are along the contact of a large body of Cretaceous basalt with 

upper Eocene limestone; others are associated with limestones 

interlayered with the basalt. In some localitites, boulders of 

this bayate have accumulated on slopes or in valleys, but no 

bayate can be found in place. In all these localities, the showing of manganese oxides is so poor that further prospecting seems 

unwarranted.

In the western part of the Southern Peninsula, a little manganese oxide was found in two places, one north of Les Coteaux 

on the south coast, and one about 4 miles east of Anse d'Hainault. 

At the former, small nodules and pellets of manganese oxides ar.e 

associated with calcareous tuff and breccia in basalt, and at the 

latter a small vein of manganese oxide a few inches wide is exposed near the contact of basalt with' kaoliniaed porphyry. Neither of these deposits contain enough manganese to warrant further 

prospecting.

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As a result of conversations between the President of the 

United States and the President of the Republic of Haiti, discussions were Initiated in May 1941, between the Department of 

State and the Department of the Interior to make a survey of the 

strategic mineral resources of the Republic of Haiti. The Geological Survey was designated by the Secretary of the Interior to 

undertake this work. Plans for. the survey .were approved in 

August 1941 and funds were made available from the general defense funds of the President. Members of the Survey party arrived 

in Port-au-Prince in late November 1941, and field work was concluded the latter part of March 1942.

The survey was primarily aimed at a search for commercial 

deposits of manganese, chromium, and nickel, as these metala were 

known to occur in the mineral deposits of the island. Small deposits of manganese, similar in some respects to those of Cuba, 

were known in the Republic of'Haiti as a result of reconnaissance 

surveys made in 1921 and 1922, and therefore special attention 

was given to a study of the manganese deposits. No large deposits 

were found, but one small deposit and several mineralogic occurences were Investigated. Because of the general geologic interest 

of.the deposits, and because of their similarity to the highly 

productive deposits of Cuba, the descriptions of the principal 

occurences examined are published here in advance of the results 

of other work.

The President of the Republic of Haiti made available all 

facilities of the Government 'that might aid in the work, and 

designated Mr. Max Mangones, mining engineer under the Secretary 

of State for Public Works, as a special representative of the 

Government on the survey. Special acknowledgment is due Mr. 

Mangones for his invaluable aid in the field. The Minister of 

Public Works, Mr. Francois Georges, the Engineer Director of 

Public Works, Mr. Robert Covington, and engineers in the field 

departments furnished aid and equipment in exploratory work. The 

Garde d'Haiti greatly aided in supplying quarters, guides and 

means of transportation.
By E. N. Goddard and L. S.'Gardner

INTRODUCTION

At Morne Macaque, about 4^- miles south of Grps Morne, in the 

Republic of Haiti, is a small manganese deposit that deserves 

further exploration, although as yet it bears little promise of 

yielding large quantities of ore. It is located on an extensive 

fault that can be traced for many miles, but a diligent search of 

the region failed to reveal any other manganese deposits along 

this fault. Much of the ore is of low grade and highly siliceous, 

but some is of high grade; possibly several thousand tons of ore 

containing 40 percent of manganese could be mined at low cost. 

A number of transportation difficulties must be overcome, however, 

if the ore is to be handled economically.

Apart from its economic possibilities, the Morne Macaque 

deposit has some very interesting geological features, and in 

some respects it resembles the much more extensive and economically 

important manganese deposits in Cuba. For this reason a rather 

detailed description of.the deposit and a brief discussion of its 

origin seem justified.

The Morne Macaque deposit was first examined and described by 

J. S. Brown and W. S. Burbank, who visited the locality in the 

spring of 1921 while they were engaged in a geological survey of 

Haiti for the Department of Public Works.I/ During that examination no attempt' was made to trench or expose the deposit to estimate grade and tonnage, but it was concluded that the ore exposed 

at the outcrop was mostly too siliceous to be salable in the 

current market. Since then no development work appears to have 

been done on the deposit. x

In connection with the strategic mineral survey of.Haiti in 

the winter of 1941-42, the writers visited the deposit with W. S. 

Burbank, W. P. Woodring, and Max Mangones. As a result of this 

visit, it was decided that the deposit should be mapped in detail, 

topographically and geologically and explored by trenching. The 

writers spent about a month on this project in January and March 

1942. Mr. Mangones, a mining engineer of the Office of Public 

Works, rendered valuable assistance, especially in supervising 

the trenching of the deposit, and Mr. San Lo, district engineer 

of Public Works at Gonalves, furnished estimates of road construction costs and aided the party in procuring laborers and 

materials.

I/ Woodring, W. P., Brown, J. S., and Burbank, W. S., Geology of the 

Republic of Haiti, pp. 470-475 (French edition, pp. 530-536): Republic of 

Haiti, Dept. of Public Works, Port-au-Prince, 1924.

29
30 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

Location'and accessibility

o

The manganese deposit lies at an altitude of about 1,000 

feet, on the east slope of Morne Macaque, about 4-g- miles south 

of Gros Morne and 12 miles north of Gonalves, in the Departement 

de 1'Artibonite (see pis. 10, 11, .and fig. 3).

Gona'ives, a town of .about 12,000 people, is the nearest 

port. It has a _good harbor and is a port of call for ocean 

freighters, but 'has no dock-loading facilities for such freighters, and all commodities must be carried from wharf to ship in 

lighters. Gros Morne, a town of about 1,000 people or more, is 

on the main road between Gonalves and Port de Paix. This road 

is gravel-surfaced and passes within about 2 miles of Morne 

Macaque. The manganese deposit Is only about 1,100 feet from 

the old abandoned Gonaives-Gros Morne road of 1921, which has 

been completely washed out by heavy rains. A small amount of 

repair work by the Office of Public Works of Haiti on 3^ miles 

of the northern part of this old road enabled the writers to 

drive within about 4,500 feet of the deposit, but even this section of road is impassable during the rainy season. The practicability of repairing the old road or of building a new one is 

discussed below.

Labor and transportation

The small size of the manganese deposit makes it uneconomic 

to expend a large sum of money on mining and milling equipment 

or on building roads. The low cost of labor in Haiti, however, 

makes it possible to mine ore cheaply by hand drilling and hand 

sorting. In 1942 common laborers could be procured in abundance 

at the rate of 30 cents (U. S. currency) a day, and foremen at 

$0.80 to $1.20 per day. The ore could be mined by open-pit 

methods to a depth of about 50 feet by common laborers. At 

greater depth underground methods would probably have to be used, 

for which trained miners would be needed,' and only a few such 

miners artf available in the Republic.

Among the problems to be solved in exploiting the Morne 

Macaque deposit is that of transportation by land arid sea.

In order to make the deposit accessible for trucking through 

out the year, an entirely new road would have to be constructed 

from the Gonaives-Gros Morne road to the deposit, at a cost, as 

estimated by the Office of Public Works of Haiti, of approximately $15,000. The old road, which approaches Morne Macaque 

from the northeast, could be put in condition for .Truck transportation during the dry season at a cost of about $2,000, but 

it would be impassable during the rainy season. It might be 

feasible, if the deposit were worked, to stockpile the ore at 

the mine during the rainy season and haul it only during the dry 

season. This.appears to be the only practicable plan until 

development has proved larger reserves of ore. The total distance by this route from the deposit to the wharf at Gonalves is 

about 21 miles.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 953 PLATE 10

ILE DE LA TORTUE

Routes travelled, including auto 

roads and principal trails

MINERAL PROSPECTS AND OCCURRENCES

£onaivesk^Evnner

-* MtOrganis'4

Iron (magnetite)

L' U RVT I B O N I T E

D E P/T.

Anse d'Hainault

\Sources Chaude s 

MONTAGNES DE L4

D E P'T

Les Anglais

Chardonn ieres 

Port a Piment

INDEX MAP OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 736841 O-47 (Face p. 30)
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 31

Figure 3. Index map of the region between -GonaUvee

and Gros Morne, Republic of Haiti 

736841 O - 47 - 2
32 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

If ore were shipped from Gonalvea, Jt would have to be moved 

by lighter from wharf to ship. Manganese ore, if not too powdery, could be transferred in this manner by hand shovelling. 

Sacking the ore would add greatly to the expense. Shipping 

charges to the Atlantic seaboard on small lots (400 tons, or more) 

of ore handled in this way would probably be in the neighborhood 

of $12.00 per ton, Including wharfage and lightering charges. 

At Port-au-Prince, the ships are loaded at -the dock, but that 

port has no facilities for handling bulk ore, and the truck haul 

to Port-au-Prince would be long and costly. It seems likely that 

the only feasible- means of- ocean transportation would be small 

freighters of 700-' or 800-ton capacity, or small sailing vessels 

that would call at Gonalves and carry only manganese ore.

GEOLOGY

General relations

Morne Macaque is part of a low northwest-trending mountain 

range on the west side of the structural val.ley that separates 

the Massif du Nord on the east from the Northwest Peninsula on 

the west. The manganese deposit is associated with a strong 

northwest-trending fault, which extends for more than 15 miles 

along this range and forms the west side of an extensive graben 

block, 15 te- 25 miles long and 3 to 8 omiles wide (aee fig. 3). 

The block is marked by a topographic depression., the northern 

part of which is the valley of Les Trois Rivieres, and the southern part the valley of Riviere la Quinte.

This block is composed of interbedded limestone, marls and 

grits of Oligocene age, which have been warped into a series of 

folds parallel to the trend of the block. On either side of the 

graben is a thick accumulation of volcanic rocks, probably Cretaceous, Interbedded with some thin limestone beds and overlain 

by Eocene conglomerate and limestone.

Local geology

The relations of the geology "of Morne Macaque to the regional 

geology are well shown on a map by Brown and Burbank,2/ and the 

local geology is shown on plate 12.

On the west side of the fault is a thick series of volcanic 

rocks, represented on Morne Macaque by andesite and andesite 

breccia. The breccia, which is next to the fault, seems to grade 

westward and upward into coarse andesite conglomerate, but the 

exact relations between.the two'are masked by erosion and float. 

The upper slopes of Morne Macaque are covered with andesite 

boulders belonging to this conglomerate, but the cementing material is rarely seen. The bedding in the conglomerate Is obscure; 

its attitude could be observed at o'nly one place on a southeast 

ridge of Morne Macaque, where it strikes N. 20° E. and dips 42° E, 

At two places on Morne Macaque (see pi. 12), small remnants of a

£/ Woodring, W. p., and others, op. oit., pi. 2.
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

't.s.50-.-.

BULLETIN 953 PLATE 11

 IIOTOCHAI'JI OK MOKINK M ACAOUE, IXM >M M. M<t III hKMVI A U)W DIV1DK. 

Manganese deposit is on hill at left.

B. SPECIMEN FROM TRENCH JNO. 2. 

Oligocene limestone enclosing breccialed manganese oxides.
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF THE REPUBLIC OP HAITI 33

dense, thin-bedded white limestone of Eocene age lie on the conglomerate and volcanic rocks and dip 32°-50° NE. At its base 

this limestone has a greenish color and contains small pebbles 

of volcanic rocks. Poraminifera collected from the limestone on 

Morne Macaque by Brown in 1921 were identified by Woodring 3/ as 

of Eocene .age.

On the east side of the fault, occupying the middle and lower eastern slopes of Morne Macaque, there is also a dense, white, 

thin-bedded limestone, very similar"to the Eocene limestone on 

the west side of the fault. Where this rock has been dragged up 

along the fault zone, it strikes N. 10°-68° W., and dips 62°-80° 

NE., but 500 to 600 feet farther east its dip gradually flattens 

to 25°-40° NE. The lower eastern slopes of Morne Macaque and 

the valley at its base are largely covered with float- and alluvium, but in the valley bottom a short distance to the north, 

clays and marls containing interbedded limestones are exposed, 

which have been identified by Woodring 4/ as upper Oligocene.

During the present investigation Woodring also collected 

some upper Oligocene Foraminifera from limestone about 2 miles 

southeast of Morne Macaque and about half a mile east of the 

fault. The thin-bedded'white limestone adjoining the fault on 

Morne Macaque has not been traced continuously to the undoubted 

Oligocene beds in the -valley; there is consequently some doubt 

as to its age, but it also is here tentatively dated as upper 

Oligocene, as was done by Burbank and Brown.5/

Structure and character of the fault. The general tr,end of 

the fault along the east slope of Morne Macaque is N. 30° W., 

but its trace is very irregular in places (see fig. 3). Its dip 

appears to be steep everywhere, and along the manganese deposit 

it ranges from 70° E. to verticali The fault is nowhere well 

exposed on Morne Macaque. An exposure about half a mile to the 

north is marked by about 40 feet of sheared limestone, but in 

other places the fault zone appears to'be only a few feet wide. 

On Morne Macaque, near the silicified rock or jasper that occupies part of the fault zone, the limestone bordering the jasper 

is sheared in places for a width of half an inch to 6 inches, 

and the jasper itself is generally sheared or crushed by movement along the fault. The downthrow is on the east, and is estimated by Burbank and Brown 6/ as "....probably at least 500 

meters (1,640 feet), possibly much more." This estimate is based 

on the assumption that the limestone just east of the fault is 

Oligocene and is underlain by the Eocene rocks that are exposed, 

and deeply eroded, on the west side of the fault. It is barely 

possible, however, that the limestone on the east side is partly 

of,Eocene age, in which case the displacement might be only a 

few hundred feet.

There are few grooves on the walls of the fault, and they 

give no adequate indication as to direction of movement; but 

the irregularities of the fault seem to require, that the displacement was nearly straight down the dip, for any appreciable horizontal movement would have produced strong brecciation at places

3/ Woodring, W. p., and others, op. cit., p. 141, and table opposite

p. 144.

4/ Idem, pp. 151-152. 

5/ Idem, p. 470. 

6/ Idem, p. 471.
34 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

where the strike of the fault abruptly changes. In a few places 

the jasper in the fault zone is marked with small grooves that 

pitch about 20° N., but these grooves are probably due to minor 

movement later rather than the major faulting.

MANGANESE DEPOSIT

The manganese ore of the Morne Macaque deposit occurs in the 

fault zone. It is associated with large lenticular bodies of 

brown and yellow or black jasper, chalcedony, and quartz. The 

chief ore minerals are pyrolusite and manganite, which arelargely intergrown with the chalcedony and quartz. Siliceous 

material practically identical with that on Morne Macaque is

associated with manganese deposits in Cuba,?/ where the miners

call it "bayate," and this name will therefore be used in describing the Morne Macaque deposit.

As shown on plate 12, there are two distinct lenticular 

bodies or veins of bayate along the fault zone, one on the east 

slope of Morne Macaque and one on a prominent spur to the north. 

These bodies range in width from a few feet to 50 feet, and the 

slopes below the outcrops are covered with bayate rubble, including some huge boulders. On the east slope of the mountain, many 

of the boulders line up in a northwesterly direction, roughly 

parallel to the fault zone, and some of these seem to be nearly 

in place and to represent other bayate zones. Their structural 

relations are discussed on page 36. Five hundred feet east of 

the fault.is a zone of bayate, obviously in place, that is somewhat different from the rest. The outcrops indicate a body about 

180 feet wide and 480 feet along, which appears to have no connection with any fault or other structural break. This bayate 

is mostly yellow but partly red, and apparently contains no manganese whatever. It seems to line up roughly with the bayate 

zone along the fault on the north spur.

Nearly all the manganese ore is found in the more southerly 

of the bayate zones along the fault. Here bayate can be traced 

more or less continuously for a length of 800 feet, and through 

a maximum width of 25 feet. The ends of this zone are composed 

of brown bayate containing little manganese oxide, but the central part is a lenticular body, about 275 feet long, of black 

bayate containing much manganese oxide (see pis. 12. and 13). 

At the north end of this zone is a disconnected segment of bayate 

about.75 feet long, which appears to extend out into the andesite 

breccia. This segment may have been broken off from the main 

zone by a cro'ss fault, or may have filled a branch fissure of 

the main fault zone.

Nearly all the manganese ore of the Morne Macaque deposit is 

associated with the black bayate, which stands up in prominent 

boulderlike outcrops 6 to 20 feet high. The black color of thil \ 

bayate seems to be due to a microscopic intergrowth of quartz or * 

chalcedony, or both, with manganese oxides* The black bayeite 

is intimately banded with seams and lenses of pyrolusite. and 

manganite from a fraction of an inch to several inches wide. In 

places this material grades into irregular pockets of relatively 

high grade manganese ore, well represented by a 50-ton boulder 

at the head of trench No. 1 (see pi, 13 A).

T/ Bur chard, S. I., Manganese ore deposits in Cuba: Am. Insto kiln. Met. 

Sng. Trans., vol. 63, pp. 51-104, 1919. 

.Park, C. f. t oral communication.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 953 PLATE 12

Manganese ore contain 

3O % or more manganese"

Low grade siliceous manganese ore 

containing less than Z5% manganese 

(Distribution of grades based portly

on trenching and partly on inferences

as to continuity)

"Fault"

Strike and dip of beds

Dip of contact

100 Feet

Contour interval Z feet 

Datum is mean sea level

DETAILED GEOLOGIC MAP OF THE MORNE 

MACACUE MANGANESE DEPOSIT

EXPLANATION

MAP SECTION MAP SECTION

Geology and topography by 

E.N. Goddard and L. S. Gardner

Limestone and 

calcareous mudatone

Limestone

 TKa.V'o 

 « .Ix « ax

CEOUSl?) TERTIARY

f--V.;^\ '"i\

Bayate 

thrown and yellow jasper)

m.

Zone of bayate boulders 

that may be in place

10 r<^i

Large bayate bouh Bayate boulders 

ders not in place and rubble

Manganese oxides mixed 

with more or less silica

Fault Strike and dip of beds Dip of contact 

(Approximately 

located)

SECTION ALONG LINE A-*', ILLUSTRATING DEPOSITION IN FAULT ZONES SECTION ALONG LINE 8-B', ILLUSTRATING DEPOSITION IN FAULT ZONES

600-

SECTION ALONG LINE »-*', ILLUSTRATING DEPOSITION CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH THE ENCLOSING LIMESTONE SECTION ALONG LINE B-B', ILLUSTRATING DEPOSITION CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH THE ENCLOSING LIMESTONE

GEOLOGIC SECTIONS ILLUSTRATING TWO POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE MANGANESE DEPOSIT

100 0 100 SOO Feet

50 50 200 Meters

Contour Interval 20 feet 

Datum is mean sea level

GEOLOGIC MAPS AND SECTIONS OF THE EAST SLOPE OF MORNE MACAQUE, NEAR GROS MORNE, REPUBLIC OF HAITI

736841 0-47 (Face p. 34)
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OF THE REPUBLIC OP HAITI 35

On the east side of the black bayate zone is an irregular 

pockety vein of relatively high grade manganese ore, ranging in 

width from 1 foot .to at - least 6 feet and possibly as much as 15 

feet (see pi. 12). This vein is chiefly composed of a mixture 

of pyrolusite, manganite, and some wad; it contains only a little 

silica. In places it seems to grade into the black bayate zone. 

The vein-is bordered on the east by a nearly vertical wall of 

limestone that has been dragged up along the fault. The contact 

is marked by a thin selvage of sheared limestone and manganese 

oxides, and the limestone is commonly pinkish for a few feet 

from the vein. In places this pinkish limestone contains small 

lenses of manganese, oxide a few feet in length, which penetrate 

the limestone irregularly but are generally parallel to the . 

bedding. Scattered through some of these lenses and in the adjacent, limestone, are small grains of a greenish-yellow waxy mineral which has been identified by Jewell Jo Glass, of the United 

States Geological Survey, as a clay mineral, probably nontronite.

Along the west side of the black bayate zone, there is in 

most places a narrow vein of manganese oxides from a few inches 

to 18 inches wide, and veinlets of the oxides extend irregularly 

from the black bayate body for as much as 3 ta 5 feet into more 

or less shattered and altered andesite breccia.

Origin of the deposit. The structural features of the Morne 

Macaque manganese deposit and the mode of occurrence of the manganese oxides have two possible interpretations, both of which 

are illustrated in the sections in plate 12.

The occurrence of the bayate and manganese minerals in a 

fault zone might naturally lead to the assumption that these 

materials were .deposited in the fault zone, either by hot or 

cold ascending solutions or by cold descending solutions. Burbank 8/ came to the conclusion that "it is ... probable that the 

deposits were formed by hot spring waters associated with igneous activity of Miocene or later age..." But a restudy of the 

deposit, and its exploration by trenching, have brought to light 

certain similarities to some of the Cuban deposits that point to 

a different conclusion. It now seems probable that the manganese 

and bayate are bedded deposits, contemporaneous with the limestone with which they are in contact, and that they have been 

turned up along the fault, though some waters circulating along 

the fault may subsequently have caused redistribution and recrystallization of the manganese oxides.

In the Cuban deposits,9/ manganese oxides and associated 

masses of bayate are interbedded with limestones and tuffs of 

Eocene age. The bayate is in the form of irregular or lenticular masses, froia which the^manganese'ore commonly extends outward along the bedding of the strata. According to Park,10/ 

"most of the manganese deposits are bordered or overlain by red 

tuffs and limestones..," Park ll/ concluded that the manganese 

was derived from warm springs. He says: "it is believed

8/ loodring, W. P., and others., op. cit., p. 47. 

9/ Burchard, E. F., op. cit*

Park, C. F., Jr., Manganese deposit* of Cube: U. S. Oeol; Surrey 

Bull. 935-B, pp. 75-97, 1942.

10/ Pork, C. F., Jr., op. cit., p. 83. 

ll/ Idea, p. 93.
36 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

that the warm waters rising along conduits deposited manganese 

oxides at favorable places along the conduits and in adjacent 

porous beds, partly by direct deposition in openings and partly 

by replacement of tuff or limestone; it is also believed that 

warm water reaching the sea deposited manganese oxides as a 

primary s ediment."

Certain features of the Morne Macaque deposit indicate that 

much of the high-grade manganese ore was likewise deposited as 

a primary sediment. Where exposed in trenches 2 and 4 (see 

pi. 14), the limestone within 3 to 6 feet of its contact xwith 

the high-grade manganese vein is pink and contains small lenticular bodies of manganese oxides, which appear to be contemporaneous with the enclosing limestone. The boundaries of these 

lenses are roughly parallel to the bedding but are partly broken; 

small fragments of manganese oxide are scattered through the 

limestone, and small seams of limestone penetrate some of the 

larger lenticular bodies (see pi. 11B). Many of the fragments 

are angular, but some are bordered on one or more aides by a 

fine reniform structure, which suggests that they were torn 

from the crust of a manganese layer deposited in an open space, 

possibly as a layer in a surface spring deposit. As seen in 

thin section, the limestone contains numerous globigerina, and 

some of these particularly near the reniform bodies, are enclosed 

in the manganese oxide. Minute pellets of yellow clay, probably 

nontronite, also are found in the manganese oxide and in a few 

inches of the adjacent limestone. It seems likely that these 

brecciated manganese lenses are derived from a thin layer of 

manganese oxide which was deposited on the sea floor, subsequently broken up by wave action, and covered with calcareous sediment. 

There is no evidence of brecciation of the limestone, though it 

and the enclosed manganese oxides are cut by undulating seams 

of calcite.

Other evidence partly confinns o this view, though the relations are co'nsiderably obscured by° surface debris. Nowhere, 

even in the deepest trenches, could the black bayate be found 

in direct unfaulted contact with either the limestone or the 

andesite breccia; the large masses of bayate on the slopes are 

in the form of boulders, and although some of these must be 

nearly in place, their contacts are thoroughly otacured by a 

thick cover of rubble and talus. The bayate bodies lying east 

of and downhill from the manganese deposit are difficult to 

explain, however, as being localized along subsidiary faults 

and fissures. In the surrounding limestone, which id exposed 

here and there on the slopes and in the sharp ravines, no evidence is to be seen of mineralized fissures or faults alined 

with the lenticular bayate bodies. Furthermore, masses and 

boulder trains of bayate exhibit physiographic relations that 

are consistent with derivation from east-dipping bedded deposits 

rather than from vertical masses along fissures (see pi. 12). 

They are In exact alinement with the strike of the bedding, and 

where they are exposed in the trenches their dips conform to 

those of the nearby limestone beds. It may also be pointed out 

that the lower bayate mass on the slope of the south hill is at 

approximately the same stratigraphic horizon as the large mass 

on the north hill adjacent to the fault.

An origin essentially contemporaneous with the sedimentary 

rocks also accounts satisfactorily for certain regional features 

of the bayate occurrences in Haiti whose meaning would be otherwise obscure. The lack of such deposits elsewhere along the 

fault contact for many miles can thus be accounted for on the 

supposition that the deposits were formed only in narrow belts
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 953 PLATE 13

A. FIFTY-TON BOULDER AT HEAD OF TRE.NCH .NO. 1.

B. OUTCHO1' AT UK \li i :

OUTCROPS OF SILICEOUS MANGANESE VEIN (BLACK UAYATE), 

MORNE MACAQUE MANGANESE DEPOSIT.
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 37

on the sea floor, with a trend somewhat oblique to that of the 

fault. The distribution of the bayate in the limestones, tuffs, 

and basalts of the Southern Peninsula north of Jacmel also is 

more in accordance with this view than with one that attributes 

the localization of the deposits to structure alone. 0

Because of the evidence discussed above, the writers are 

inclined to believe that the manganese deposit at Morne Macaque, 

and the associated bayate, were deposited on the sea floor by 

warm springs and are virtually contemporaneous with the adjacent 

limestone. If that is true, these materials were dragged into 

their present position by later faulting and their association 

with the fault.is largely fortuitous. However, there is evidence of considerable reworking of both manganese and silica by 

waters, probably of meteoric origin, that circulated along the 

fault plane. 'It must be admitted that this explanation of the 

manganese deposits cannot be proved "from the evidence at hand 

but it is consistent with the known facts and is in agreement 

with conditions that obtain in large areas in the neighboring 

island of Cuba. If development work at the deposit is undertaken, it should be planned with a view to testing the relations 

of the manganese layers to the limestone bedding at depth.

Grade of ore

Most of the manganiferous material exposed in the Morne 

Macaque deposit is of low grade and highly siliceous, but a small 

tonnage of good manganese ore has been exposed by trenching; It 

is possible that there is enough of this material to constitute 

minable bodies of ore. The black bayate, which is mainly a mixture of chalcedony and manganese oxides, is exposed over a total 

length of about 300 feet and has an average width of about 15 

feet. A sample cut by the writers across 17 feet of this siliceous material contained 22.92 percent of manganese, 54.33 percent of silica, 0.05 percent of ?2®5i and_ no sulfur .'12/ Burbank ^L5/ cut a sample at approximately the same place across a 

width of 8 or 9 meters; this sample contained 25.8 percent of 

manganese, 1.52 percent of FegOg, and 0.028 percent of phosphorous. The writers believe that these two analyses give a fair 

idea of the grade of the black bayate zone.

Very little manganese ore of good grade and low silica content was exposed at the surface of the Morne Macaque deposit, 

except for the 50-ton boulder already mentioned. It was thought, 

however, that the presence of a zone of relatively soft, nonsiliceous manganese ore on the east side of the siliceous zone 

might be indicated by the pronounced bench along the east side 

of the black bayate zone (pi. 14). Five trenches were dug, 

therefore, along the main zone of black bayate, and one on the 

small detached .lens to the north. The location of these trenches 

is shown on-plate 12 and cross sections of them on plate 14. 

Bedrock was exposed in three of the trenches, and in all three 

a zone of ore relatively free from silica was found on the east 

side of the black bayate. In the other three trenches, boulders 

of ore almost in place were found, but bedrock was not reached,

12/ Analysis by J. D. Fall-child. U. S. Geological Survey.

]_3/ Woodring, W. p., Brown, J. S., and Burbenk, B. S., op. cit., p.475.
38 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

because the bench Is there underlain by a gravel-filled gully 

along the east side of the bayate zone. Apparently some of the 

soft manganese ore had been gouged out by a heavy rainfall and 

the resulting gully had been quickly filled with debris from the 

walls.

The ore In place in these trenches, and also that in boulders 

exposed in the other trenches, was carefully sampled. Analyses 

of the' samples are given in table 3. The samples contained from 

31 to 47.70 percent of manganese, from 7.87 to 31.51 percent of 

silica, from less than 0.01 to 0.15 percent of PgOs, and no sulfur. The most significant analyses are those of samples KM 29 

and MM 30, which were taken where the vein was best exposed and 

contained very little visible siliceous material. In the t other 

samples, some visible siliceous material was mixed with the manganese, and no attempt was made to cob it out. By careful cobbing and sorting, it should be possible to produce ore containing 

40 percent or more of manganese and 15 percent or less of silica. 

The ore from trenches Nos. 2 and 5 (samples MM 29 and MM 30) 

could not be sorted, for it contains no visible waste.

RESERVES

The Morne 'Macaque manganese deposit contains only a small 

tonnage of ore in sight and Its total volume is not large. Lowgrade siliceous ore or black bayate is fairly well -exposed over 

a length of about 300 feet, an average width of 15 feet, and a 

vertical distance of 75 feet. If this siliceous ore extends to 

an average depth of 75 feet below the surface, as seems probable, 

and averages 10 cubic feet to the ton, this siliceous block contains about 33,750 tons of indicated ore, which will probably 

average 20 or 25 percent of manganese and 50 percent of silica.

The better ore is softer and less well exposed than the siliceous material and appears to be more pockety. For the purpose 

of estimating reserves, however, it seems reasonable to regard 

this ore as forming a vein that borders the black bayate zone 

along Its entire length (see pi. 12). The zone of good-grade 

soft ore on the east side of the black bayate zone is estimated 

to average about 3 feet in width. In trenching, the soft ore 

was exposed through a vertical distance of only 37 feet, but this 

Is due to the fact that the ore Is rather deeply eroded on the 

east side of the black bayate zone; it seems justifiable to. 

assume that the good ore extends to an average depth of 50 feet 

below its exposures in the trenches. The indicated ore of this 

character would thus form a block 300 feet long, 3 feet wide, 

and 50 feet deep. Assuming that this ore also will average about 

10 cubic feet to the ton, its weight would be about 4,500 tons.

On the west wall of the black bayate zone, some good ore can 

be cobbed from the andesite breccia. This ore averages about 1 

foot in width for the full length of the zone, and is exposed 

through a vertical distance of 50 feet. A block 300 feet long, 

1 foot wide, and 50 feet deep would contain about 1,500 tons. 

This narrow zone could not be mined as cheaply as the'wider zone 

on the east side.

The total indicated reserves of manganese ore averaging close 

to 40 percent manganese are thus estimated to be 6,000 tons, 

since this deposit is so limited in known extent, and since no

other deposits of any size are found elsewhere in the vicinity,
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 953 PLATE 14

Slumped limestone

Trench I

iped limestone

Slumped limestone

Trench 2

Ore contains

ondesite breccia fragments

Trench 3

EXPLANATION

Brown boyate or jasper

Geology by E.N. Goddard and L. S.Gardntr

Trench 4 Trench 5 Trench 6 Trench 7 Trench 8

CROSS SECTIONS OF THE MANGANESE VEIN EXPOSED IN TRENCHES, MORNE MACAQUE MANGANESE DEPOSIT, NEAR GROS MORNE, REPUBLIC OF HAITI

736841 O-47 (Face p. 38)
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OP HAITI 39

it seems unsafe to predict any greater depth for this deposit. 

If, however, the ore forms a bedded deposit as the writers are 

Inclined to believe, it may extend to a greater depth than has 

been assumed.

Table 3. Analyses of manganese ore from the Morne Macaque 

manganese deposit

Sample 

No. I/

MM 1

MM 2

MM 3

MM 4

MM 5

MM 7

MM 8

MM 9

MM 10

MM 12

MM 29

MM 30

MM 1 -

MM 2 -

MM 3 -

MM 4 -

MM 5 -

MM 7 -

MM 8 -

MM 9 -

MM 10-

MM 12-

MM 29-

Insoluble 

in HC1

17.31

54.33

43.74

15.63

31.51

5.14

7.85

15.68

40.94

11.73

2.98

4.69

Mn

39.00

22.92

30.82

35.51

31.00

33.41

40.32

37.19

28.16

35.89

46.52

47.70

P2°3

0.15

0.05

0.07

0.20

- 0.07

0.02

<0.01

none

do.

do.

<0.01

0.01

W03

none

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

do.

S

none

do.

do.

do.

do.

0.05

trace

trace

none

$race

<0.01

<0.01

Representative sample of 50-ton boulder at head of

trench No. 1.

Cut sample across 17 feet of the black bayate zone, 15

feet NW. of trench No. 1.

Manganese ore selected from black bayate zone 15 feet

NW. of trench No. 1.

Average sample of selected float ore picked up on surface in vicinity of trench No. 1.

Representative sample of the leas siliceous boulders in

trench No. 1.

Sample across 2 feet of manganese ore in trench. No. 4

(includes 1 ft. of siliceous material).

Representative sample of large boulder in trench No. 6.

Sample of Ijjj- feet of ore on andesite breccia wall in

trench No. 6.

Sample of lense of siliceous manganese ore exposed in

trench No. 7.

Sample of 14 inches of soft ore in trench No. 8.

Sample of 3 feet of good ore exposed in bottom of trench

MM 30-

No. 2. 

Sample of feet of good ore exposed in trench No. 5.

\J Analyses 1 to 6 by J. G. Fairchild, U. S. Geological Surrey.

Analyses 7 to 12 by J. J. Fahey, U. S. Geological Survey.

Analyses 29 and 30 by V. North, U..S. Geological Survey.
40 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

the ore body showed signs of betterment, or of continuity along 

the bedding to greater depth. By careful management in mining, 

shipping, and marketing, it might be possible to mine profitably 

as much as 6,000 tons of the high-grade ore, averaging about 40 

percent manganese. The low-grade siliceous ore could not be 

profitably handled by the methods available at the present time.

CONCLUSIONS

As the Morne Macaque manganese deposit is probably smalL, 

any plan for its development and exploitation must be approached 

with caution. On the basis of present knowledge, the expenditure 

of a large sum of money on such items as equipment, high-salaried 

personnel, and road building is not warranted. Early development 

work could be done as the trenching has been done, by a small 

force of hand laborers with one foreman and a man to supervise 

the drilling of holes and blasting. If a few thousand tons of 

mlnable ore was proved by this work, and if shipping facilities 

and a market were available, it might be justifiable to spend a 

few thousand dollars in making storage bins and a dry-weather 

road to the property. Open cuts could probably be used in mining 

to a depth of 50 or 60 feet. The greater expenditures entailed 

by underground mining would be Justified only if at that depth
MANGANESE PROSPECTS IN THE REGION NORTH AND NORTHWEST

OF JACMEL

By E. N. Goddard and L. S. Gardner

INTRODUCTION

In the mountainous region between Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, 

in the eastern part of the Southern Peninsula, is a large roughly oval-shaped area of Cretaceous basaltic rocks, surrounded by 

upper Eocene and Oligocene limestone (see pi. 10 and fig. 4). 

The basalt core of the mountains forms a domal or anticlinal 

structure; on the north and south borders, at least, the overlying Eocene limestone dips steeply away from the basalt. In 

places there has been faulting of undetermined magnitude along 

this contact.

W. S. Burbank,14/ while making a traverse across the peninsula in 1920, founa a little manganese oxide, associated with 

boulders of jaspery material, along one of these fault contacts 

in the valley of the Grande Riviere about 6 miles north of Jacmel. In December 1941 the writers, accompanied by Max Mangonds, 

spent four days in the vicinity of Trouin, 12 miles northwest*"of 

Jacmel, in searching the contact of the basaltic rocks with the 

Eocene limestone and also the adjacent basalt area northeast of 

Trouin. Early in 1942 it was reported that manganese deposits 

had recently been discovered in the region north of Jacmel and 

that application for a mining concession had been filed with the 

Government. In view of these circumstances, the writers and Max 

Mangon&s visited this region in February 1942 and spent a week 

exploring the basalt-limestone contact and the adjacent basalt 

area 6 to 10 miles north of Jacmel. Octave Delauche and Leon 

Lamothe aided greatly in this search by guiding the party to all 

the known bayate and manganese localities. Many zones of the 

bayate boulders and a few outcrops of bayate were examined, but 

only a few specimens of manganese oxides were found. None of the 

localities held any promise of having commerical deposits of mangartese.

14/ Woodrlng, W. P., and others, op. cit., pp. 475, 476.

41
CRETACEOUS
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OP HAITI 43 

VICINITY OP TROUIN

In the vicinity of Trouin, the contact between the basaltic 

rocks and the upper Eocene limestone appears to be normal and 

dips 55° to 70° or more toward the south and southwest. This 

contact was explored for about 2 miles southeast and 2-jjj- miles 

northwest of Trouin. At several places along this contact large 

boulders of bayate have accumulated in gulches and valley bottoms, 

but nowhere was the bayate found in place. The boulders, some 

of which are ae much as 15 feet in diameter, are particularly 

numerous in the valley of the Riviere Gauche, half a mile to a 

nile south of Trouin. Some of them contain a few very small 

seams and spots of pyrolusite, but none contain any large quantity of manganese oxide. Although the bayate masses from which 

these boulders were derived could not be located, the boulders 

are so distributed that they probably came from positions along 

or near the contact between the basalt and the upper Eocene limestone. The residual boulders have accumulated as a result of 

erosion, and have come from various levels above the present surface, but have not undergone any great amount of lateral transportation.

The valley of the Riviere Gauche also was explored for a 

distance of about 5 miles to the northeast and east of Trouin« 

This area is chiefly occupied by basalt, but In places the basalt 

is interbedded with thin layers of limestone, in part fossiliferous, and with thicker layers of tuff, all- of which dip rather 

steeply to the southwest. The fossils found in these limest.ones 

are reported by Woodring IS/ to indicate a late Lower Cretaceous 

age. At many places within 3 miles of Trouin there are trains 

of bayate boulders, some of which can be traced from the river 

bed up to the tops of nearby low ridges. The bayate was found in 

place at only one locality, about 2 miles northeast of Trouin, 

where small irregular masses of bayate occur along the base of a 

25-foot bed of limestone interbedded with the basalt. The limestone bed was traced up the river bank to a small knob, on which 

a train of bayate boulders has accumulated along the border of 

the limestone. Some of these boulders contain a little pyrolusite, none of which, however, was found in place. The bayate 

outcrop Is too small to warrant any prospecting. The limestone 

and bayate can be traced to a point about 600 feet northwest of 

the knob. At this point the limestone is only 2 feet thick, and 

the bayate extends no farther.

Apparently the bayate in this region was formed in or close 

to the thin layers of limestones interbedded with the basalt, 

either by replacement of limestone or by syngenetic deposition. 

Manganese minerals are nowhere abundant enough to invite further 

exploration, and nowhere were they found in place. No bayate or 

manganese oxide was found to be associated with the tuff beds In 

the basalt rocks.

15/ Woodring, W. P., oral communication.
In the area due north of Jacmel, the contact of the basalt 

and upper Eocene limestone has a general trend of N. 70° W. and 

appears to be a fault for part of its extent (see fig. 4). The 

basalt to the north is interbedded with numerous layers of limestone, hornstone, and tuff, and at two or more places the higher 

summits are capped with nearly horizontal outliers of upper 

Eocene limestone, which rest unconformably on the basalt.

The contact between the basalt and the upper Eocene limestone 

was explored for a distance of about 7 miles in the vicinity of 

the Grande Riviere and the Riviere Gosseline, and many localities 

in the basalt were examined, some of them as much as 3-g- miles 

north of the contact. The localities visited are shown in figure 

4; they range in altitude from about 500 to 1,800 feet.

Bayate containing very small quanities of manganese oxides 

was found at two places near the contact of the basalt and limestone in the vicinity of the Grande Riviere. There the contact 

is a fault, whi-ch dips steeply to the south. On the east side 

of a ridge, one half to three fourths of a mile west of the 

Grande Rivie're, three small bodies of bayate 100 to 150 feet long 

lie in this fault zone, and one contains a few thin veinlets of 

pyrolusite. About 1,000 feet south along this ridge, there are 

a few other small bayate bodies in the upper Eocene limestone 

which dips about 30° S., but here the exact structural relations 

of the bayate to the limestone could not be determined. In one 

of these bodies a small veinlet of pyrolusite was found.

A mass of bayate about 18 feet in diameter, with some manganese stain, is exposed in the stream bed of the Grande Rivie're 

about where the fault should cross, but this mass is surrounded 

6y alluvium and may not be in place. About one-fourth mile east 

of the river there is a more extensive bayate zone on the same 

fault contact. This zone gives rise to a train of bayate boulders about 100 feet wide and 400 to 500 feet long, extending along 

the fault line, and in a few places bayate is found in direct 

contact with the upper Eocene limestone. Some of the bayate 

boulders contain stringers and small irregular masses of manganese oxides, all of them less than an inch in width.

No bayate was found elsewhere along the contact of the basalt 

and limestone. Where the contact is crossed by the Rivie're 

Gosseline it appears to be deposltional; there' the upper Eocene 

limestone adjacent to it dips 65° S»

In the basalt area nortti of the contact, drained by the 

Grande Riviere and the Riviere Gosseline, there are many zones 

and scattered concentrations of bayate boulders, but in only 

five of these was any manganese found. At Mahotiere, about 9 or 

10 miles north of Jacmel, there are two trains of bayate boulders 

nearly in place; the source of one train appears to be in a tuff 

bed and that of the other in- a limestone layer in the basalt. 

Neither is over 150 feet long, and the bayate contains only a 

few small seams and stains of manganese oxides. Float from the 

upper zone has piled up in a depression on the west side of a 

hill. Here a little bayate can be seen in place, and a fewpieces and nodules of manganese oxide can be picked up on the 

surface, but the surrounding bedrock is fairly well exposed and 

there is no room for a manganese body of appreciable size.
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI 45

South of Mahotiere there are three other localities at Defend, at 'Nan Dauphin, and at an unnamed place where trains of 

bayate boulders are concentrated on weathered basalt in the vicinity of limestone beds. At .each of these localities a little 

manganlferoua material in the form of nodules and small seams is 

associated^ with the bayate, but it is insignificant in quantity 

and was nowhere found in place. Some bayate was found in a thin 

bed of limestone a few feet thick, but it contained no manganese.

At Girard, in the mountains between the Grande Rivie're and 

the Riviere Gosseline, bayate boulders are strewn over an area 

about 800 feet long and 200 to 300 feet wide, and a few of them 

contain a very little manganese. These boulders appear to have 

come down the hillside from the base of a mass of, Upper Eocene 

limestone -that overlies the basalt (see pi. 11B). No bayate or 

any manganiferous material was found in place. Close to the base 

of the limestone there are a few pieces of pinkish limestone containing pebbles of basalt and spots of manganese oxides, but 

these meager showings do not warrant further investigation.

In all these localities north of Jacmel the showings of manganese oxide are so poor that any further prospecting seems 

unjustified. In most places the boulders of bayate were not in 

place, having apparently accumulated from higher levels by gradual erosion of the land surface. In the few places where the 

bayate was found in place, it was in bodies of small size, and 

the geologic conditions were distinctly unfavorable for deposits 

of manganese ore.

MANGANESE PROSPECTS BORDERING 

THE MONTAGNES de la HOTTE

By W. S. Burbank

INTRODUCTION

The Montagnes de la Hotte comprise a aeries of high, rugged 

mountain ranges forming the backbone of the western part of the 

Southern Peninsula of Haiti (pi. 10)o The central range, which 

trends east-west, appears to be largely composed of'Cretaceous 

basalt, argillite, and metamorphosed limestone, and it is flanked 

on the north and: south by ranges composed of upper Eocene limestone and younger formations. The band of'Eocene and younger 

rocks on the north is much wider than that on the south, where 

the basalt series reaches the coast line near the west end of the 

peninsula.. The basaltic core of the southern part of the range 

is deflected or forks southeastward beneath the western part of 

the Cayes plain and is exposed on the lie a Vache. On the north 

side of this structural, deflection and of the Cayes plain, the 

core of the range, which here extends from Camp Perrin nearly to 

Beaumont and has a width of about 6 miles, is composed of steeply 

dipping argillites of Cretaceous age. In this series there are . 

beds of limestone, but little if any coarse volcanic material and 

no massive flows. South of Beaumont the Cretaceous rocks are 

overlain unconformably by the upper-Eocene limestone. Although 

the extension of the argillite series westward from the road 

crossing the peninsula was not explored, the series presumably 

wedges out on the north flank of the ranges between the road and 

Sources Chaudes, where it is absent. No diagnostic fossils were 

found' either in the limestones interbedded with the basalts or 

with the argillites. The limestones in both series are recrystallized and strongly fractured', and are somewhat silicified but 

otherwise unminerallzedo

Since the 1920-21 survey of the Republic of Haiti, this 

country has become much more accessible to travel and economic 

exploitation; a search of several reported manganese localities 

was made early in 1942 by Woodring, Mangones, and Burbank. A 

little manganese oxide was found in two places, one' north of Les 

Coteaux on the south coast and one east of Anse d'Hainault., but 

not'the slightest evidence of mineralization was observed elsewhere. It is hardly possible, therefore, that the region contains any commercial deposits of manganese.

47
48 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945 

MANGANESE SHOWINGS NORTH OP LES COTEADX

An occurrence of manganese oxide north of Les Coteaux was 

brought to our attention through Inspector Camille Boncy of the 

Rural Agricultural School,, district of Port-a-Piment. The specimens exhibited appeared to warrant examination of their source, 

as they showed an association of manganese oxide and tuff resembling that observed at some occurrences in Cuba. When the 

locality was visited, however, the average material seen in place 

was found to be of much lower grade than these specimens, and 

the mineralized area much too small to warrant trenching and 

sampling.

The deposit is in low basalt hills bordering the south slope 

of the mountains, and just back of a narrow range of coastal 

hills composed of upper Eocene limestone. The locality is 

approached by trails along a small stream valley that breaches 

the coastal range at Les Coteaux. It lies west of the stream 

and about three quarters of a mile N. 35° E. from the church in 

the center of the village.

The deposit is about a third of a mile from the contact between the basalt and the Eocene limestone, which strikes about 

No 45° W. and dips 35° SW.. Basalt and interbedded tuffaceous 

rocks that crop out on a small ridge at the manganese locality 

strike ab'out N. 30° W., and dip 50° SW. The manganese oxide, 

probably mostly psilomelane, forms nodular masses, most of which 

are mere pellets about the size of peas and few of which are as 

much as an inch in diameter. These occur interstltially to, and 

partly enveloping, fragments of breccia near the base of a bed 

of calcareous tuff and breccia, and are scattered through the 

soil on the crest of the knoll, over an area 50 feet across and 

a few hundred feet in length. The nodules and pellets are so 

sparsely distributed, both in the soil and in the tuff-breccia 

that is exposed, that they can scarcely make up more than a few 

percent of the rock in place. Here and there small stringers 

and veinlets of pyrolusite cut the more massive volcanic rocks, 

but they add little to the value of the deposit. Along the 

extension of the bedding to.the northwest the manganese oxide 

disappears; where the tuff-breccia beds and "basalt cut across 

a narrow deep ravine at the foot of the northwest slope of the 

hill, the rocks are weakly fractured and are stained red and 

green by iron minerals, but they contain no manganese oxide. 

Likewise in the slope facing the valley to the southeast of the 

knoll, there is no evidence of manganese in the rocks. No prominent structural feature is evident that might have localized 

the manganese, which probably was present in some form in the 

breccia and tuff at* the time of- their deposition. The veinlets 

of pyrolusite may have been formed by redistribution of part of 

this manganese, as a result of fracturing and circulation of 

solutions during or after the tilting of the rocks.

The basalt series was traversed for about 2 miles to the 

north across its strike, but no more manganese oxide was found. 

_A few layers of hard massive limestone are interbedded with the 

basalt oij the mountain slopes near Source Bouquet which is about 

2 miles north of the locality described, but they contain no 

jasper and there are no indications of manganese in or near them.
MANGANESE DEPOSITS OP THE REPUBLIC OP HAITI 49 

LOCALITY BETWEEN CHARDONNIERES AND LES ANGLAIS

A few large boulders of jasper containing minor seams and 

stains of manganese oxide were found at a single locality about 

midway between the villages of Chardonnieres and Les Anglais, 

on the south coast. The boulders have accumulated when a steep 

contact, probably faulted, between the basaltic rocks and the 

upper Eocene limestone reaches the shore. A small ravine was 

followed along the base of the limestone mountain that lies north 

of the contact, but exposures were meager and revealed only baaalt 

in the stream bed. A few other boulders of Jasper were found, 

but none containing manganese. This occurrence Is very similar 

to that along the base of the upper Eocene limestone near Trouin 

and north of Jacmel. As aeveral other traverses across the contacts of the same rocks, both from Port-a-rPiment and at Lea 

Coteaux, failed to reveal any appreciable quantity of manganeae 

oxide, conditiona favoring its depoaition cannot be favorable in 

thia region.

LOCALITIES EAST OP ANSE D'HAINAULT

On the new road under conatruction in 1942 from Anse d'Hainault to the vicinity of the agricultural plantation at Sources 

Chaudes, a little jasper and some veinleta of manganese oxides 

were found. About 4 miles east of Anse d'Hainault a contact between the basalt and a body of kaollnized porphyry la exposed in 

a road cut. Close to thia contact and on the north aide of the 

cut ia a small knoll of volcanic rock on which a few boulders of 

jasper have accumulated. The jasper ia atained with iron but not 

with manganeae. A aingle vein of manganese oxide, nowhere more 

than a few Inches in width, is exposed in the road cut, but no 

other concentration of manganese waa noted along the road. East 

of thia cut, iron-stained and kaolinized porphyry is exposed'for 

more than a mile.

Any jasper and manganese oxide that may be exposed during 

construction of the road will warrant attention, although here 

as elsewhere in the Southern Peninsula it appears unlikely that 

concentrations of manganese in commerical quantity will be found.

Traverses south from Sources Chaudea, extending for 6 to 7 

miles across this basaltic rock, failed to reveal any manganesebearing rocks interbedded with it. At some places where manganeae ore waa aaid to occur, the auppoaedly manganiferoua mineral 

proved to be a greenish-black, luatroua variety of chlorite a 

silicate of magneaium and iron associated with the basaltic 

rocks. Limestones interbedded with the basaltic rocks contain 

neither Jasper nor manganeae. A few dikes of intrusive rock were 

seen, but the rocks in contact with them were not mineralized.

GENERAL CONCULSIONS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE 

MANGANESE AND JASPER IN THE SOUTHERN PENINSULA

By W. S. Burbank and E. N. Goddard

The distribution and mode of occurrence of the manganese 

oxides and associated jaspery rocks, as revealed by the deposits 

described above, appear to indicate a somewhat different and 

more complex origin than was assigned to them in the Geology of 

the Republic of Haiti.16/ Many of the occurrences north of 

Jacmel lie near the contact of the upper Eocene limestone with 

the basalt series of Cretaceous age, or near outliers of Eocene 

limestone capping the older series. Some of the jasper nearly 

everywhere associated with the minor manganese occurrences replaces Cretaceous limestones;" north of Trouin and Jacmel, in the 

Massif de la Selle, and north of Les Coteaux in the Massif de la 

Hotte, evidence of replacement or association with Cretaceous 

beds is definitely established. Jasper occurs, also, in obscure 

contact with the basal beds of the upper Eocene limestone, but 

few if any examples of replacement of the Eocene limestone by 

manganiferous or jaspery material were found. The accumulations 

of jaspery material near the contacts of the Cretaceous and Eocene 

rocks, or in Cretaceous rocks not far below this contact, may 

indicate that the jasper was formed during both Cretaceous and 

early Tertiary time, and some of it may be related in origin to 

the surface on which the Eocene limestones were deposited. Longcontinued erosion of this old land surface may have resulted in 

the destruction of many of the later volcanic accumulations, together with any deposits of manganese and jasper that may have 

been associated with them. Remnants of the jasper may have 

accumulated here and -there on this -land surface, much as they 

have on the present surface, and have since been uncovered by 

erosion. Such examples are perhaps represented by the occurrences 

near Girard and at the base of the Eocene near Trouin. The 

deposits in place in the Cretaceous rocks may represent similar, 

more widespread deposits of late Cretaceous age.

It is believed that the materials composing the deposits were 

derived from the volcanic rocks. Ground waters, perhaps locally 

heated and acidified by volcanic activity, may have traversed 

porous or fissured rocks, leaching out the silica, manganese, and 

iron, which were later deposited when the charged waters came into contact with calcareous rocks or other precipitating agents. 

A similar origin has been inferred for small deposits of manganese oxide and manganiferous jasper associated with volcanic rocks 

in Colorado, in the western United States.

16/ Woodring, I. P., and others, op. cit., pp. 473-477 (French edition, 

pp. 534-538).

51
52 GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATIONS IN THE AMERICAN REPUBLICS, 1945

The ores of Cuba also resemble the occurrences In Haiti In 

their- local association with jasper (bayate) and in certain 

aspects of mineralogy. Their origin has recently been summarized, 

by Park IT/ as follows:

"The manganese is thought to have been deposited by warm 

springs which were active during the last stages of Eocene volcanism that'centered in the Sierra Maestra. Textural features 

show that the manganese oxides were in part deposited in open 

spaces conduits of spring waters .and pore spaces of the rocks 

and In part by replacement of the rocks. Some of the deposits 

are bedded and appear to be primary accumulations of manganese 

oxides, presumably derived from spring waters discharged into the 

sea. The lithologlc character of the bedded deposits Indicates 

that they were deposited contemporaneously with the associated 

sedimentary rocks."

It is probable that the Cuban and Haitian deposits are of 

very similar origin, but that the conditions of accumulation in 

the Southern Peninsula of Haiti were much less favorable for 

large depo-sits than those existing in the Cuban province during 

early Tertiary time. The massive lava flows and coarse breccias 

of Cretaceous age in Haiti differ considerably from the uniformly 

bedded and finer-grained tuffs and breccias of Eocene age in Cuba. 

Tuffs form a considerable part of the upper Eocene rocks of Cuba, 

but are absent or obscure in the upper Eocene of Haiti. Hence 

the rocks of Haiti neither constitute as good sources of manganese as those of Cuba nor afford the widespread porous layers required for its effective deposition. The scattered, small, and 

pockety character of the Haitian deposits, in so far as they are 

preserved on the Southern Peninsula, thus appears to be a consequence of the general nature and history of the enclosing rocks, 

rather than of significant differences from the Cuban deposits 

in mode of origin.

IT/ Park, C. F., Jr., Manganese deposits of Cuba: D. S. Oeol. Survay 

Bull. 935-B, p. 75, 1942.

o