Geologic description
The country rocks at this site are flyschlike metasedimentary rocks that gradationally intertongue with andesitic and basaltic metavolcanic rocks (Berg and others, 1988, p. 17-19). The strata were regionally metamorphosed to greenschist-grade phyllite and semischist in Late Cretaceous time (Brew, 1996, p. 27). Their premetamorphic age is uncertain. Berg and others (1988, p. 17) state that they closely resemble Upper Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous marine flysch and volcanic rocks nearby on Gravina Island. Near Smugglers Cove, they are intruded by metadiorite that may be transitional to the metavolcanic rocks (Berg and others, 1988, p. 20).
The deposit consists of a quartz-fissure-vein stockwork 6-30 feet wide in chloritic schist (Brooks, 1902, p. 58). The largest vein observed by Brooks was 6 feet wide. Assays of the deposit made in the early 1900s reportedly showed gold values of $2.50-$600/ton (Au at $20.67/oz.). Fluid inclusion studies of quartz vein material from several of the Helm Bay lodes suggest that the veins formed at temperatures and pressures consistent with conditions during the Late Cretaceous greenschist-grade regional metamorphism (Maas and others, 1995, p. 184). |