British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas and Responsible for Housing
News | The Premier Online | Ministries & Organizations | Job Opportunities | Main Index

MINFILE Home page  ARIS Home page  MINFILE Search page  Property File Search
Help Help
File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  31-Aug-1995 by Gilles J. Arseneau (GJA)

Summary Help Help

NMI
Name DELPHINE (L.4334), 616 (L.4333), EUREKA (L.4335) Mining Division Golden
BCGS Map 082K048
Status Past Producer NTS Map 082K08W
Latitude 050º 25' 33'' UTM 11 (NAD 83)
Longitude 116º 24' 07'' Northing 5586149
Easting 542481
Commodities Silver, Lead, Zinc, Copper Deposit Types I05 : Polymetallic veins Ag-Pb-Zn+/-Au
Tectonic Belt Omineca Terrane Ancestral North America
Capsule Geology

The Delphine property consists of three Crown grants (Lots 4333, 4334 and 4335). The Delphine mine is located on Lot 4334 which is on the southeast flank of Mount Catherine in the Golden Mining Division, at an elevation of 1950 metres above sea level.

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 Delphine mine occurrence consists of a quartz-carbonate vein 0.3 to 1 metre wide within a normal fault. The fault strikes 150 degrees, dips 78 degrees northeast and cuts the middle dolomite member of the Mount Nelson Formation. Ore minerals include galena and tetrahedrite with minor sphalerite, pyrite and chalcopyrite (Open File 1990-26, page 32). The vein, where it has been stoped for 60 metres, had an average width of 1 metre and was of solid galena (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1898). Total production from the Delphine yielded 614,315 grams of silver, 3025 kilograms of copper and 46,880 kilograms of lead from 170 tonnes mined.

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1898-1041,1055; 1899-595,666; 1900-805; 1901-1013; 1902-135,303; 1903-97; 1904-113; 1905-145; 1906-248; 1909-100; *1915-94,95; 1919-114; 1951-190; 1963-85, 1964-135
EMPR ASS RPT 2502, *18094
EMPR BC METAL MM00556
EMPR GEOS MAP 1995-1
EMPR INDEX 3-194
EMPR OF *1990-26, p. 32
EMPR PF (82KSE General File - Geology map by P. Billingsley, 1958)
GSC MAP 1326A
GSC MEM 148, p. 48; 369, p. 112
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

COPYRIGHT | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY | ACCESSIBILITY