The Bell mine occurrence is located at 1920 metres elevation above sea level on Crown grant Lot 1165, in the Slocan Mining Division. The property has been developed in conjunction with the Sunset-Trade Dollar occurrence (082FNW227).
The principal producing years on the Bell claims were 1916, 1917 and 1918. After 1918 little work was done on any of the claims until the autumn and winter of 1926-27, when lessees shipped over 100 tons from old workings on the Trade Dollar.
Workings on the Bell claim include 3 short adits over a vertical range of 27.4 metres. In 1927 those workings in the vicinity of the productive sections, were mostly inaccessible. Two bodies of nearly pure zinc ore were encountered in the No. 1 adit, but these did not continue far below this level. On No. 2 level a stope 12 metres long extends 4.5 metres above the level. This stoped area contained small lenses and streaks of galena, and in places as much as 0.9 metres of good zinc ore. The same zone continues to No. 3 level, 9 metres below, but at this level mineralization is only narrow streaks of vein matter containing some sphalerite.
On the Bell claim, several hundred tonnes of high-grade zinc ore were recovered from old dumps, and pillar and stope remains in the underground workings during 1943, 1944 and 1945.
Regionally, the area lies on the western margin of the Kootenay Arc, in allochthonous rocks of the Quesnel Terrane. In the vicinity of the occurrence, the Quesnel Terrane is dominated by the Upper Triassic Slocan Group, a thick sequence of deformed and metamorphosed shale, argillite, siltstone, quartzite and minor limestone. Rocks of the Slocan Group are tightly and disharmonically folded. Early minor folds are tight to isoclinal with moderate east plunging, southeast inclined axial planes and younger folds are open, southwest plunging with subhorizontal axial planes. The sedimentary sequence has been regionally metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies.
South of the occurrence, the Slocan Group has been intruded by the Middle Jurassic Nelson intrusions which comprise at least six texturally and compositionally distinct phases ranging from diorite to lamprophyre. The most dominant phase is a medium to coarse grained potassium feldspar porphyritic granite. Several feldspar porphyritic granodiorite dikes, apparently related to the Nelson intrusions, also cut the sedimentary sequence near the occurrence (Paper 1989-5).
The Bell Crown grant is underlain by quartzite, calcareous argillite and slate of the Slocan Group. The strata generally strike northwest, dip 43 to 58 degrees southwest and are folded in a northwest-trending syncline. The central portion of the syncline is underlain by quartzite and calcareous argillite which host most of the ore. Beneath the core of the syncline are slate and thinly banded argillite which are cut by numerous felsic porphyritic intrusions. The Bell mine occurrence consists of a vein of nearly pure sphalerite within carbonaceous and calcareous argillite. The main body has an average thickness of 75 centimetres, strikes 110 degrees and dips 65 degrees southwest. It occurs near the lower contact of a porphyritic sill and is cut by numerous faults and fractures which complicate its geometry. Some north-trending fractures appear to be pre-mineral and the vein is thickest where it intersects these fractures, locally attaining up to 3 metres in width. The ore consists of massive sphalerite brecciated and cemented by yellow siderite and cut by veinlets of pyrite with minor galena. The vein has been exploited in three separate adits.
Production from the Bell mine between 1916 and 1944 yielded 158,408 grams of silver, 248 grams of gold, 761,892 kilograms of zinc and 14,594 kilograms of lead from 2189 tonnes mined. A small amount of ore was recovered from the Sunset-Trade Dollar occurrence between 1916 and 1918 and is included with the Bell mine production.
