Although the first claims in the Tombstone area were staked in 1901, most exploration to date has focused on high grade veins, skarns and uranium deposits, and pre-dates the search for bulk tonnage gold or shale-hosted nickel. Early reconnaissance geochemical programs by mining companies analysed a very limited range of elements, and assessment work on file covers only a small part (3.6%) of the study area. Recent GSC stream sediment geochemistry shows that compared to the rest of the Dawson map sheet area, the Tombstone area contains highly anomalous gold, copper, molybdenum, tungsten, uranium, copper and rare earth values clustered around the Tombstone Suite intrusions, and anomalous nickel, copper, cobalt, chromium, zinc, iron and rare earth elements associated with a belt of Earn Group shale north of the proposed park. Known mineral deposits in the area include the Marn deposit (Minfile 116B 147), a small, high-grade gold skarn, and the Tombstone deposit (Minfile 116B 151), a very large, low-grade uranium resource with no published reserves. The entire tinguaite phase of the Tombstone Stock averages 78 pp, U (Olade and Goodfellow, 1978), with a number of high grade zones containing up to 2% U3O8. High grade silver veins on the south side of Tombstone Mountain were mined briefly in 1920 (Spotted Fawn, Minfile 116B057) but smelter results were not available.

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A mineral assessment of the Tombstone study area was undertaken by the Department of Economic Development in the summer of 1998 at the request of the Department of Renewable Resources. The purpose of the mineral assessment was to produce a mineral potential map, which was to be used to assist with the finalization of the boundaries of the Tombstone Territorial Park. Following an initial compilation, a field program was designed to document known mineral occurrences, test and improve the existing regional mapping, investigate geochemical anomalies, characterize favourable environments for mineralization, sample for lithogeochemistry, and prospect for mineralization. A field program resulted in the discovery of several new mineral occurrences, as well as the discovery of previously unmapped geological formations. Fieldwork was followed by a compilation phase that integrated the new information to the existing geoscientific data. The geology of the study area was subdivided into thirteen geological tracts. A panel of five industry and government experts, familiar with the geology, mineral occurrences and mineral deposit types to be found in the area, was convened in June 1999. Based on the final compilation and their expertise, they produced a relative ranking of all the tracts according to their potential to host mineral deposits, from highest potential to lowest. The highest-ranking tracts are those that include, or are near the Cretaceous intrusions (Tombstone, Mount Brenner and smaller intrusions) and have strong potential for intrusion-hosted (Fort Knox-type, porphyry uranium, skarn) and intrusion-related (skarns, veins, replacement) mineralization. Other tracts demonstrate potential for Wernecke Breccia, shale-hosted nickel sulphide, ultramafic-hosted nickel and listwaenite, Carlin-type, Mississippi Valley-type or replacement lead-zinc, as well as volcanogenic mineralization. A final boundary was adopted in December 2000; it includes land outside of the original study area. This final boundary therefore includes areas that were not assessed in this study. All our wildlife sightings were documented and were included in the subsequent wildlife survey.

A copy of this thesis is available at the EMR library – QE195.T45 1966. This thesis is available online at https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/f1881m84c.

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