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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  22-Aug-2007 by Sarah Meredith-Jones (SMJ)

Summary Help Help

NMI 082G5 Gyp1
Name SUNRISE, CAVE Mining Division Fort Steele
BCGS Map 082G043
Status Past Producer NTS Map 082G05E
Latitude 049º 29' 20'' UTM 11 (NAD 83)
Longitude 115º 32' 54'' Northing 5482818
Easting 605134
Commodities Gypsum Deposit Types F04 : Bedded celestite
Tectonic Belt Omineca Terrane Ancestral North America
Capsule Geology

The Sunrise occurrence, comprising the Sunrise and Cave claims, is located along highway 3, 26 kilometres east of Cranbrook. A quarry has been opened on the Sunrise claim about 100 metres north of the Cranbrook-Wardner highway.

Gypsum is exposed over an area measuring 550 by 200 metres. The quarry is 125 metres long and 15 to 60 metres wide with gypsum exposed over a height of 36.5 metres decreasing to 2 to 4 metres along the south wall. The gypsum has been traced about 600 metres and is likely the strike extension of similar exposures on the Mayook Quarry 94 prospect (082GSW044).

Limestone and gypsum, of the Upper Devonian Palliser Formation, is exposed in the quarry and about 30 metres above the quarry. The main structural feature is a northeast plunging anticline. The north limb is cut by a fault where nearby gypsum is brecciated and contains clasts of both gypsum and limestone. The exposed rock is pale grey to dark grey, occasionally black, sucrosic and laminated to thin bedded. Sporadic small flakes of native sulphur, slightly altered fragments of limestone and stringers of white fibrous selenite, 1 centimetre or less in width, are locally found within the gypsum. Dolomite beds 2 to 4 centimetres thick are intercalated with the gypsum. Results of sampling indicate that the quality varies between 72 and 77 per cent (Open File 1991-15).

An analysis indicates 24 to 31 per cent CaO, 1 to 7 per cent MgO, to 2.7 per cent Fe2O3 plus Al2O3, 24 to 43 per cent SO3 and 13 to 19 per cent loss on ignition.

Approximately 95,000 tonnes of gypsum was quarried here from 1926 to 1929 and again from 1948 to 1954 (Open File 1991-15).

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1929-299,442; 1945-131; 1949-255; 1950-220; 1952-257;
1953-190; 1954-179; *1968-300
EMPR FIELDWORK 1988, pp. 497-506
EMPR OF *1988-14; 1991-15
GSC MAP 11-1960
GSC MEM 76
GSC P 58-10, p. 40
CANMET RPT *714, p. 65, 1930

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