Geologic description
Eden (2000) describes quartz-stibnite-gold veins at three locations in the vicinity of Smith Creek. Two of the three locations described by Eden (2000, locations 266 & 359) appear to correspond to the Wanemaker & Wortman (WI115) and the Jones & Boyle (WI114) prospects described by Ebbley and Wright (1948). The location described in this record is about a mile further upstream and was not described by Ebbley & Wright (1948). Reports of production of antimony from placer operations on Smith Creek may have covered one or more of these three locations. The veins here consist of coarse-grained, white quartz with stibnite and arsenopyrite. The gold is mostly in the margins of the quartz veins but rare in the stibnite. Calcite, ankerite and minor dolomite also occur along the margins of the veins. The veins do not exhibit alteration envelopes. Thin quartz-carbonate veins, which represent a later stage of the mineralizing event, cut the quartz-stibnite-gold veins. The mineralized veins are 0.5 to 1.5 centimeters thick, strike N 55 E, and dip steeply (Eden, 2000). Two samples of sulfide-bearing quartz veins contain 1,532 and 1,958 ppb gold, 5,772 ppm and 3,933 ppm arsenic and more than 2,000 ppm antimony (Eden, 2000, samples 11165 and 11166). The veins are near a fault contact between Devonian chloritic schist and a unit of Devonian gray-black phyllite, black slate, and black metasiltstone. |
