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File Created: 04-Jun-1986 by Larry Jones (LDJ)
Last Edit:  17-Sep-1999 by Peter S. Fischl (PSF)

Summary Help Help

NMI 103F1 Stn1
Name SLATECHUCK CREEK Mining Division Skeena
BCGS Map 103F029
Status Past Producer NTS Map 103F01W
Latitude 053º 14' 19'' UTM 08 (NAD 83)
Longitude 132º 16' 16'' Northing 5902108
Easting 682222
Commodities Slate, Argillite, Pyrophyllite Deposit Types Q : GEMS AND SEMI-PRECIOUS STONES (diamonds under N)
Tectonic Belt Insular Terrane Wrangell
Capsule Geology

The quarry is located at an elevation of 152 metres near Slatechuck Creek, 2.4 kilometres from Kagan Bay in Skidegate Inlet.

Before 1872, the quarry was excavated by the Haida Indians to a size 1.5 by 76 metres by 1.2 metres deep. Sometime later the mineral claim was Crown-granted. The Indians used the slate to carve and polish ornaments, pipes and musical instruments.

An 1872 assay of the black slate gave the following results: silica, 44.78 per cent; alumina, 36.94 per cent; peroxide of iron 8.46 per cent; lime, trace; magnesia, trace; water, 7.15 per cent; carbonaceous matter, 3.18 per cent.

In the early 1900's the slate was shipped by a Victoria company for manufacturing in Victoria.

This deposit of black carbonaceous slate is hosted in an unnamed unit of Eocene to Oligocene age, comprised mostly of shale (Unit Tsh, Geological Survey of Canada Paper 90-10, pages 31-50, Figure 9). The slate is part of a sequence of grey siltstone and fine sandstones, slightly metamorphosed, which appears to overlie an overturned anticline of the Honna Formation, not far from a faulted contact of the Masset Formation.

The slate occurs in lenticular patches up to 1 metre in thickness and 6 metres in length. With the slate, occur an abundance of flattened stems and leaves and many irregular small patches of anthracite. The slate is composed of silt-sized fragments of kaolinite and lesser montmorillonite in a macerated very fine carbonaceous clay matrix that forms 40 to 75 per cent of the rock. The rock has a hardness and a specific gravity of 2.88 to 2.89.

The slate or argillite is used by the Haidas for carving. The Haida Natives have a Crown-granted mineral claim centred on the quarry.

A study done by the British Museum showed the argillite specimen they examined to consist largely of pyrophyllite with some iron serpentine (Harding, 1989).

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1903-211; 1906-81,82; 1909-75
EMPR BULL *54, pp. 101,176
EMPR PF (Harding, R.R. (1989): Rhodonite and Argillite from British Columbia (the Sea Rose and Slatechuck respectively) (in Sea Rose file - 092M 015)
GSC ANN RPT 1904, Vol. 16, Pt.B, pp. 29-31
GSC MAP 1385A; 4-1990
GSC MEM 88, p. 172
GSC P 86-20; 88-1E; 89-1H; 90-10, pp. 31-50, 271
GSC PROG RPT 1878-1879, p. 303; 1872-1873, pp. 61,62
GSC RPT #996, 1908, p. 54
CANMET RPT *452, pp. 195,196
EMPR PFD 17119

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