Geologic description
The Odie prospect is in the Triassic Canwell mafic-ultramafic complex (Nokleberg and others, 1992 [MF]; 1992 [Open-File]; Bittenbender and others, 2007). The complex is a sill-like body that trends west-northwest for about 3.5 miles, dips to the south at about 40 degrees, and is about 2,000 to 3,000 feet thick. It has a dunite core that grades outward to wehrlite, peridotite, and gabbro. The body was subsequently intruded by a Cretaceous quartz-diorite to granodiorite pluton.
The Odie prospect was found in 1995 by American Copper and Nickel Company (ACNC) working with Fort Knox Gold Resources Inc. (Bittenbender and others, 2007). ACNC flew an airborne geophysical survey over the prospect in 1997 (Burns and Clautice, 2003), and mapped and sampled it. Nevada Star Resources Corp. did a Max-Min electromagnetic survey in 2004 and drilled at least one hole in 2003 or 2004 that was at least 400 feet deep. The Bureau of Land Management examined and sampled the prospect in the early 2000s (Bittenbender and others, 2007). There are some small trenches. The rocks at the Odie prospect are mostly weakly serpentinized dunite that has been intruded by a gabbronorite dike that is about 15 feet thick and can be traced for about 100 feet. The dike throughout has clots of or disseminated magnetite and pyrrhotite with minor chalcopyrite and pentlandite. It is locally copper stained and gossanous. The Nevada Star drilling cut 12 feet that contained 0.56 percent nickel, 0.15 percent copper, 106 parts per billion (ppb) platinum, and 136 ppb palladium. W.T. Ellis (oral communication, 1998) reported a high-grade sample that contained 0.86 percent copper, 1.2 percent nickel, 137 ppb gold, 12,330 ppb platinum, 1,247 ppb palladium, 537 ppb osmium, 289 ppb iridium, 89 ppb rhodium, and 662 ppb ruthenium. Bittenbender and others (2007) collected five samples. A chip sample across 16 feet of the dike contained 14 ppb gold, 47 ppb platinum, 49 ppb palladium, 124 parts per million (ppm) cobalt, 262 ppm copper, and 1,725 ppm nickel. A select sample of gossanous material near the footwall of the dike contained 2,120 ppb gold, 2,780 ppb platinum, 5,250 ppb palladium, 338 ppm cobalt, 1.70 percent copper, and 1.70 percent nickel. |