Geologic description
Maas and others (1995, p. 183 and fig 46) describe the country rocks in the area of this site as felsic schist and metavolcanic rocks (greenstone). Berg and others (1988, p. 17-19) describe them as gray and green phyllite and semischist derived from intertonguing flysch and andesitic and basaltic volcanic rocks. The strata were regionally metamorphosed to greenschist grade in Late Cretaceous time (Brew, 1996, p. 27). Their premetamorphic age is uncertain. Berg and others (1988, p. 17) note that they closely resemble Upper Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous marine flysch and volcanic rocks nearby on Gravina Island.
The deposit is a 1.8-foot-thick auriferous quartz fissure vein in felsic schist (Maas and others, 1995, p. 183, table 26, and fig. 46). The mineralization is not described, but it probably consists of pyrite, which may also occur in bleached wallrock adjacent to the vein. The vein was explored, probably in the early 1900s, by an adit of unknown length. Assays of samples taken across the vein show up to 26.9 ppm Au (Maas and others, 1995, table 26). Maas and others (1995, p. 184 and fig. 46) describe a unit of bleached, chlorite-sericite schist containing varying amounts of pyrite that crops out along the northeast shore of Smugglers Cove. An adjacent schist unit contains more chlorite than sericite. The cumulative width of the two units is up to 90 feet and they have been traced northward along strike for nearly 4200 feet. A gold-bearing horizon that includes the New Adit prospect occurs near the contact between these two units. Maas and others suggest that this gold-bearing pyritic belt of schists is of volcanic-exhalative origin. The age of the postulated exhalative deposits is unknown. The quartz fissure vein at the New Adit, which presumably crosscuts the foliation in the schist, probably is Late Cretaceous (also see KC028). |
