The Keno Hill-Galena Hill mining district of central Yukon has been a prolific silver-lead-zinc producer since the early part of the century. Typical orebodies are extensive vein systems with a mineralogy consisting of siderite, quartz, pyrite, galena, sphalerite, and freibergite in varying combinations. The veins are restricted to steep SE-dipping fault zones principally contained within a brittle graphitic quartzite unit and some concordant greenstone bodies. The main silver lodes form a narrow east-west belt, 25 km long, and have been assigned a mid-Cretaceous age as have nearby granitic bodies and their associated tin and tungsten mineralization. This study of the vein minerals indicates that groups of adjacent deposits have characteristic mineral assemblages distinguishing them from other groups; these form zones along the entire length of the belt. The following summarizes the principal mineralogical zones from west to east:: 1) pyrargyrite in quartz-siderite veins with some native silver, polybasite, stephanite, and acanthite are mainly in the west; 2) siderite, galena, sphalerite, and freibergite occur in most deposits but are found without the other index minerals on top of Galena Hill; 3) pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite are in deep vein exposures in the valley between Galena Hill and Keno Hill; 4) calcite is also in the deep veins along the eastern flank of Galena Hill but extends to the east onto Keno Hill; and 5) boulangerite-jamesonite and abundant quartz-arsenopyrite rich fractions of veins at the eastern end of the district overlap with the calcite zone. Higher gold values are recorded in zones 1, 2, and 5. The changing mineralogical facies record an evolving environment of deposition in a continuous, 25 km long hydrothermal vein system. The western deposits are thought to be higher level, or laterally "downstream" equivalents of the eastern deposits. This zoning sequence is typical and is well established in other regions of the world. Such systems are known to progress further downwards, into gold-quartz veins before attaining tin and tungsten mineralization and associated granitic bodies.

The Logan (MINFILE 105B 099) and YP (MINFILE 105B 001) zinc-lead-silver deposits are located in the Rancheria District, Yukon Territory. These deposits and numerous other occurrences occur in veins and breccia zones which cut clastic sedimentary rocks of Proterozoic and Palaeozoic age, along fracture zones cross-cutting Cretaceous granites and Eocene volcanic dykes of mafic and felsic composition, and form replacement bodies in Palaeozoic carbonates. At the Logan and YP deposits, four phases of mineralization can be distinguished. The main sulphide minerals are sphalerite, galena, pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. Silver is mostly confined to galena, but also occurs in tennantite-freibergite group minerals, stannite, Pb-Ag-Bi-sulphosalts of the matildite-galena series and lillianite homologues. Arsenopyrite geothermometry using the method of Kretschmar and Scott (1976) returned maximum formation temperatures of 465° - 490° C at YP and 335° - 385°C at Logan. Microthermometric investigations of fluid inclusions in quartz associated with the YP mineralization showed formation pressures corresponding to a depth of 2500 m. Fluid inclusion data from quartz suggest that mineralization at YP and Logan is caused by a mixture of magmatic and metamorphic fluids. The fluid inclusions have low salinities of 34 weight per cent NaCl equivalent, an unusally low value for fluids which have separated from acid magmas. The metamorphic fuids may have been derived from metamorphic dewatering of Palaeozoic sediments.

Quantitative mineralogy, U-Pb geochronology of zircon and monazite, 40Ar/39Ar geochronology of muscovite and sericite, and Pb isotopes from galena in veins and feldspar in plutons provide insight into the age of metamorphism, mineralization, intrusion emplacement and the sources of metals at the Plateau South (MINFILE 105N 034, 035, 036) occurrences in central Yukon. Orogenic mineralization and metamorphism is ca. 110 Ma to 100 Ma, and possibly as old as ca. 130 Ma. Following deformation and regional metamorphism, two biotite-muscovite plutons, the Russell stock and Armstrong pluton, were emplaced at 95.39 ± 0.03 Ma and 95.51 ± 0.03 Ma, respectively. These plutons are here reassigned to the Tungsten suite based on mineralogy, chemistry and age. Coeval with these plutons are contact metamorphism and possibly intrusion-related mineralization. Lead isotopic data from galena cluster into two groups: Group 1 is enriched in thorogenic Pb with 206Pb/204Pb values between 18.31 and 18.14, 207Pb/204Pb between 15.62 and 15.55 and 208Pb/204Pb between 38.77 and 38.30. Group 2 is isotopically evolved with 206Pb/204Pb values between 19.13 nd 18.91, 207Pb/204Pb between 15.78 and 15.63 and 208Pb/204Pb between 39.24 and 39.07. We suggest that late Early Cretaceous mineralization is related to large-scale orogenic fluids that tapped primitive (deep?) metal sources and early Late Cretaceous mineralization, coeval with local intrusions, sourced isotopically distinct metals from the intrusions. Alternatively, all mineralization could relate to Early Cretaceous orogenic fluids but with heterogeneous, locally derived metal sources and thermal resetting of Ar ages near the intrusions.

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

The RAM zinc-lead-silver property in southwest Yukon Territory (105 D/4) is on the contact between metamorphic rocks of the Yukon Crystalline Terrane and foliated granitic rocks of the Coast Plutonic Complex. Both are intruded by an Eocene granitic stock. The metamorphic rocks, predominantly biotite-quartz pelitic schists, with amphibolite, marble, graphitic phyllite and foliated metagranite, may be partly Precambrian and are modified by metamorphism. Foliated granodiorite to quartz diorite of the Coast Plutonic Complex intrudes the metamorphic rocks. Rb-Sr analyses of two of these granitic rocks give a possible whole rock date for foliated granite of 143 Ma (initial 87Sr/86 Sr ratio of 0.7068), and a maximum age of 200 Ma, while K-Ar dating of hornblende and biotite separates from a granodiorite gives 106 ±4 Ma and 53.7 ±1.9 Ma, respectively. An Eocene, porphyritic microgranite stock (Rb-Sr whole rock date:: 43 Ma with assumed initial 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.705) discordantly crosscuts the older rocks on the property, and has probably reset the biotite K-Ar date in the granodiorite. Mineralization on the property includes small skarns (maximum size 15m x 6 m) with disseminated sphalerite and galena, in metasedimentary rocks of the Yukon Crystalline Terrane, near the Eocene stock. Assay of grab samples from the showings average 53.8 gm/t silver, 4.35% zinc, and 2.20% lead.

Epithermal vein and porphyry-related gold-silver deposits in the Mount Nansen area are mainly hosted in Paleozoic Yukon-Tanana Terrane metasedimentary rocks and Early Jurassic Big Creek Batholith intrusive rocks. Mineralization is spatially, and probably temporally, related to a northwest-trending belt of mid-Cretaceous hypabyssal felsic intrusions and dykes along the Mount Nansen Trend. The proximal relationship between the veins and mid-Cretaceous intrusive rocks suggests that mineralization may be genetically related to felsic magmatism. The Dickson stock yields a U-Pb zircon age of 108.3 ± 0.7 Ma, and proximal dykes in the Flex, Dickson, Brown-McDade and Weber zones give ages of 107.9 ± 0.9 Ma to 109.0 ± 0.7 Ma, similar to the age of the Mount Nansen Group volcanic rocks. Granodiorite that hosts the Dickson deposit gives a U-Pb titanite age of 191.5 ± 2.9 Ma, and is likely part of the Big Creek Batholith. Previous studies indicated two periods of mineralization in the Dawson Range: mid-Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous. Dating indicates that Mount Nansen mineralization is associated with the mid-Cretaceous emplacement of the high-level felsic intrusions.

Bedrock underlying the Slab iron oxide-copper-gold occurrence consists of fine-grained sedimentary rocks and schist of the Fairchild Lake Group (oldest unit of the Early Proterozoic Wernecke Supergroup), intermediate to mafic Slab volcanics, dioritic Bonnet Plume River Intrusions, and Early Proterozoic Wernecke Breccia that crosscuts all other units. The Wernecke Breccia was divided into two units: Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 is limited in extent and consists of sedimentary and locally abundant massive magnetite clasts in a carbonate-magnetite matrix. Type 2 cuts Type 1 and comprises sedimentary clasts in a micro-breccia matrix. Iron oxide-copper-gold mineralization is associated with Wernecke Breccia. It occurs disseminated in quartz-carbonate veins cutting metasomatized sedimentary rocks, as sulphide veins that cut Type 1 breccia, as sulphide clasts in Type 2 breccia, as well as disseminated in the matrix of Type 2 breccia, and finally as sulphide veinlets crosscutting Type 2 breccia.

A copy of this thesis is available at the EMR library – QE195.L96 1989. This thesis is available online at https://doi.org/10.7939/R38K75524

Magmatism in the Nahanni region, which defines the eastern extent of the Tintina Gold Province, is generally associated with tungsten mineralization and/or gold-copper-antimony-bismuth-lead-zinc metal occurrences. Intrusions are subalkaline, granitic to granodioritic, and contain several types of textural variations and highly evolved phases. The intrusions range from large composite batholiths to small stocks with associated felsic dykes and veins. Initial U-Pb and Ar-Ar geochronology reveals ages of 97.5-95 Ma with short (0.5-1.5 m.y.) cooling periods, although the intrusion associated with the Cantung tungsten-skarn orebody cooled over a relatively long period (3 m.y.). Magmatism in the area has been interpreted as crustally derived, however, the rare earth element primitive-mantlenormalized profile revealed negative niobium, tantalum and titanium anomalies suggesting an arctype setting. Furthermore, the granites lack volumetrically significant, primary peraluminous mineralogies characteristic of S-type granites.