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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  13-Sep-1995 by Gilles J. Arseneau (GJA)

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NMI 082K8 Pb2
Name PARADISE (L.4341), PARADISE MINE, SHAMROCK (L.4344), ROYAL STAG (L.4343), MOUNTAIN-TOP MINE Mining Division Golden
BCGS Map 082K049
Status Past Producer NTS Map 082K08W
Latitude 050º 28' 18'' UTM 11 (NAD 83)
Longitude 116º 18' 09'' Northing 5591307
Easting 549497
Commodities Lead, Zinc, Silver, Cadmium, Gold Deposit Types E12 : Mississippi Valley-type Pb-Zn
J01 : Polymetallic manto Ag-Pb-Zn
Tectonic Belt Omineca Terrane Ancestral North America
Capsule Geology

The Paradise mine is situated near the head of Springs Creek on the ridge between Springs and Bruce creeks, at 2300 metres elevation above sea level, in the Golden Mining Division.

Regionally, the area is underlain by Proterozoic clastic sedimentary rocks of the Purcell and Windermere supergroups and by lower Paleozoic strata of the Beaverfoot and Mount Forster formations (Geoscience Map 1995-1).

The Purcell Supergroup strata include the Aldridge, Creston, Kitchener, Dutch Creek and Mount Nelson formations. The Windermere Supergroup unconformably overlies the Purcell Supergroup rocks and includes the Toby Formation and Horsethief Creek Group (Paper 1990-1).

In the vicinity of the occurrence, rocks of the Kitchener and Dutch Creek formations have been further subdivided and assigned to the Van Creek and Gateway formations. The Van Creek Formation correlates with the Lower Kitchener Formation while the Gateway Formation is equivalent to the lower portion of the Dutch Creek Formation. The Mount Nelson Formation has been subdivided into seven discrete members, a lower quartzite, a lower dolomite, a middle dolomite, a purple dolomite, an upper middle dolomite, an upper quartzite, and an upper dolomite (Open File 1990-26).

Rocks of the Horsethief Creek Group, Beaverfoot and Mount Forster formations are folded and overthrusted by rocks of the upper portion of the Dutch Creek Formation and the lower members of the Mount Nelson Formation. The sedimentary rocks have undergone regional metamorphism to at least greenschist facies.

The Paradise mine orebody is within the upper dolomite member of the Mount Nelson Formation, immediately below the Windermere unconformity near the core of an east-verging anticline which is transected to the west by a north-trending fault (Open File 1990-26). Differing thicknesses of the Windermere Supergroup on either side of the fault indicate that it was active during Hadrynian extension. The host dolomite is light grey and fine grained with abundant black chert layers which preferentially replace cryptalgal structures and thin, carbonaceous black shale interbeds.

The orebody consists of a series of replacement mantos near the upper contact of the dolomite with the overlying sandstone of the Toby Formation. The ore in the upper levels of the mine was strongly oxidized and consisted mainly of lead carbonate (cerussite) with minor residual pyrite and sphalerite. At depth, the mineralization changed to mainly fracture controlled pyrite-galena-cerussite-sphalerite veins. Samples from the Paradise mine consist of massive panidiomorphic galena, sphalerite, pyrite, sucrosic cerussite and banded dolomite, galena, sphalerite and pyrite (Open File 1990-26).

Between 1901 and 1953, the mine produced about 22.9 million grams of silver, 7.2 million kilograms of lead, 3.6 million kilograms of zinc, 9999 kilograms of cadmium and 995 grams of gold from a total of 66,760 tonnes milled.

The Shamrock (Lot 4344) adjoins the Paradise Crown grant to the north, but no in-situ mineralization was detected in early exploration.

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1899-666; 1900-804; 1901-1013; 1902-134; 1903-99,102,104; 1904-113; 1905-143; 1906-135,248; 1907-90,213; 1908-89,249; 1909-100; 1915-88; 1916-187,426,516; 1917-144,177; 1918-151,185; 1919-113,145; 1920-109,138; 1921-124; 1922-183; 1923-199; 1924-180; 1925-221,231; 1926-239; 1927-264; 1928-275; 1929-284,293; 1930-112,237; 1943-75; 1944-74; 1946-174; 1948-152; *1949-196; 1950-156; 1951-40,190; 1952-43,200; 1953-151; 1955-A48,70; 1956-A49; 1957-A45; 1958-A45; 1960-84; 1964-135
EMPR ASS RPT 9842
EMPR BC METAL MM00573
EMPR EXPL 1980-117
EMPR FIELDWORK 1989, pp. 29-37
EMPR GEM 1974-83
EMPR GEOLOGY *1975, pp. G7,G11
EMPR GEOS MAP 1995-1
EMPR INDEX 3-208
EMPR LMP (Paradise, Fiche No. 61149-61153)
EMPR OF 1990-26, pp. 25,30, Figs. 17a,17b; 1998-10
EMPR PF (Starr, C.C. (1928): Report of Preliminary Examination of the Paradise Mine, 11 p.; Longitudinal Projection of the Paradise Mine (Scale 1"=100'); 82KSE General File - Geology map by P. Billingsley, 1958; News clipping, 1952; Location sketch map of claims)
EMR MIN BULL MR 166; 223 B.C. 50
EMR MP CORPFILE (Tri Basin Resources Ltd.)
EMR MP RESFILE (Paradise Mines)
GSC EC GEOL 8, p. 320
GSC MAP 2070; 12-1957; 1326A
GSC MEM 148, p. 46; 369, p. 113
CANMET MD 2727
GCNL #208, 1980; #125, 1981
N MINER April 25, 1974
Pope, A.J. (1989): The Tectonics and Mineralization of the Toby- Horsethief Creek Area, Purcell Mountains, Southeast British Columbia, Canada, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, England

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