Geology Of The Clayton Area Custer County Idaho

Author : Bob Hillmann
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 108 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (15 download)

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Download or read book The Geology and Ore Deposits of the Clayton Silver Mine, Custer County, Idaho written by Bob Hillmann and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Clayton Silver mine is an underground Pb-Zn-Cu-Ag mine, located in the Bayhorse mining district in central Idaho. The mine has been worked for fifty years and has produced 39,358,903 kg of lead, 12,778,700 kg of zinc, 754,858 kg of copper, and 218,692 kg of silver from approximatelv 2,145,000 metric tons of ore. The deposit is on the east flank of an asymmetric anticline in the Ordovician Ella Dolomite. The ore occurs as replacement and open space filling, elongate, tabular shoots which are localized along a strong northwest- trending, steep east-dipping shear zone. The primary ore minerals are galena, sphalerite, and tetrahedrite; siderite is the primary gangue. Galena and sphalerite are enriched in the south end of the ore zone; sphalerite is also concentrated at the bottom of the ore shoots. The ore controls are structural, stratigraphic, and chemical. Shearing brittlely fractured a quartz-rich horizon within the dolomitic host rock providing channels for ore solutions. Hydrothermal fluids were generated by Mesozoic and Tertiary intrusive activity causing meteoric convection cells which leached metals in the adjacent meta-sedimentary and sedimentary sequences and deposited them in favorable sites of deposition. Post mineralization shearing has dissected the ore bodies into two zones and obscured its original character. Well developed hanging wall and footwall faults diverge in the ore zone and converge north and south of the ore bodies. Zone I is contained within the structural limits of the shear and has a northerly pitch; zone II occurs outside the shear and has a steep southerly pitch. Seven ore shoots have been identified, three in zone I, and four in zone II. The identification of these shoots has improved grade control and developed a better understanding of the deposit"--Document.