Description and analysis of the geology of quartz veins containing gold ores in the Yukon Territory.

Carbonate is an important component of gold-bearing quartz veins in the Klondike district, and also makes up an under-recognized proportion of the Klondike schist host rocks. The predominantly metavolcanic Klondike schist contains carbonate as disseminated porphyroblasts and as coarse quartz-carbonate segregations, and contains rare layers of marble. Chemical staining and LA-ICP-MS analyses reveal that, irrespective of paragenesis, carbonate is dominated by Mg-Fe-Mn calcite. Laser spectroscopic analyses of C and O isotopes reveal that marble is a 13C-enriched isotopic reservoir compared to carbonate in micaceous schist. Carbonate in gold-stage veins has a similar isotopic signature to carbonate in metamorphic segregations and porphyroblasts in the host rocks. We tentatively interpret these results to indicate that the CO2 component of vein carbonate has been remobilized from local sources during brittle deformation. The results of this study may bear on interpreting the scale of rock-fluid interaction during orogenic gold mineralization in the area.

Geological map (1:50,000 scale) of the West Klondike area, central Yukon (NTS 115O/14,15 and 116B/2,3) including marginal notes on mineral occurrences.

The Mitchell-Sheba occurrence is a gold, silver and base metal-bearing quartz vein system contained within a thrust slice of mafic schist that forms part of the Klondike Schist. The vein system formed late in the D4 folding event or subsequently thereafter. Mineralization occurs as gold + silver, base metal sulphides and sulphosalts within quartz veins. Low-grade gold associated with pyrite mineralization is hosted within the surrounding chlorite schist. The mafic rocks are interpreted to be metavolcanic in origin and have reached upper greenschist facies metamorphism. Hydrothermal sericite-carbonate alteration of the host rocks is associated with mineralization and is reflected in the whole rock geochemistry. The prospect underlies one of the larger soil geochemical anomalies in the Klondike region.

Geological map (1:50,000 scale) of the East Klondike area, central Yukon (NTS 115O/9,10,11,14,15,16 and 116B/2) including marginal notes on geologic history, economic geology and mineral occurrences.

Latest (?) Proterozoic to Earliest Cambrian and Devonian to (?) Mississippian strata, and a Cretaceous or Early Tertiary porphyry dyke underlie the Plata-Inca property. The sedimentary rocks are part of the dominantly clastic assemblage that makes up the other part of the northern Cordilleran miogeocline. The sedimentary rocks are folded and cut by thrust faults and younger (?) normal faults. Steep normal faults with a variety of orientations cut all other structures. These faults host most of the veins and are well exposed in the mine workings. Most veins contain galena, sphalerite, and tetrahedrite in a gangue of siderite and quartz with minor barite and calcite. Silver-lead ratios determined from the grade of ore shipments range from 55.5 g/t Ag : 1% Pb to 137.1 g/t Ag : 1% Pb The age and origin of the gold-silver veins in the Plata-Inca camp is unclear. They are most likely related to a buried intrusion, although the only evidence for one is the small porphyry dyke at the northwest end of the property. There are no other intrusions nearby, but the deposits are at the northern margin of the belt of mid-Cretaceous intrusions that belong to the Selwyn Plutonic Suite.

A copy of this thesis is available at the EMR library – QE195.V35 1982.

The Kluane Ranges, located in southwest Yukon, are underlain by Late Paleozoic to Late Triassic volcanic and sedimentary rocks assigned to Wrangellia. Bedrock mapping completed within the White River area indicates Wrangellian rocks underwent several phases of deformation between Late Triassic and Miocene time. Middle Triassic marine, fine-grained sedimentary rocks are preserved in grabens where they are overlain by basal conglomerates and breccias of the Nikolai formation. The grabens are related to uplift associated with the deposition of Nikolai formation flood basalts and intrusion of ultramafic bodies. Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous compression resulted in structural stacking of older rocks and northeast- and southwest-verging overturned folds. Latest (?) Cretaceous to Miocene dextral strike-slip along the Denali fault system led to the formation of steeply dipping faults, extensional and compressional basins and refolding of older regional scale folds. Reactivation of Jura-Cretaceous faults also occurred at this time. An enigmatic pre-Middle Triassic deformation event is believed to be preserved locally in rocks of the Hasen Creek Formation.

Auriferous sheeted quartz veins and silicified shear zones occur along the margins and within adjacent hornfels zones of mid-Cretaceous Tombstone intrusions near the head of Clear Creek in the central Yukon. The lodes are the source for more than 120,000 ounces of downstream placer gold production. These lodes contain variable amounts pyrrhotite, pyrite, and arsenopyrite, with less abundant scheelite - alkali-feldspar, muscovite, biotite and tourmaline are common gangue phases. Grab samples of mineralization often contain gold grades in excess of 1 ounce per ton. Gold-to-silver ratios vary most commonly from 1:1 to 5:1. Gold-rich quartz veins cut all stocks, adjacent hornfels and associated lamprophyre dykes commonly contain greater than 1% arsenic. Bismuth, and less consistently tungsten and stibnite, characterize many of the most highly mineralized veins within and surrounding the stocks. Quartz veins along the intrusive-metasedimentary rock contact around the Pukelman stock are also enriched in lead and silver. R-mode factor analysis of multi-element geochemical data for 111 gold- and sulphide-bearing rock samples indicates that there are two geochemically distinct metal suites in the Clear Creek occurrences. The first is characterized by As-Au-Bi ± Sb, Te ore-related mineral association, which is typical of many intrusion-related deposits in the Tombstone gold belt. Less consistently, anomalous concentrations of Ag, Co, Cu, Fe, and Mo occur within these auriferous rocks. The second metal factor is defined by Ag-Bi-Pb ± As, Au and Te. It characterizes metalliferous vein samples that have uncommonly low Au: Ag ratios and may represent a second hydrothermal episode. Tungsten shows little consistent correlation with the metalliferous veins in either element suite.