The previously active Silver King mine is located on the north-east side of Toad Mountain, 6.5 kilometres south of the city of Nelson, British Columbia.
There is a detailed description of the geological setting and history for this mine on the British Columbia “Minfile” site, current to 2020, to which interested readers are referred. This work is especially good for the detailed historical information that it contains. A portion of the Minfile description, with geological details, is quoted below:
“Locally, the occurrence lies along the Silver King Shear Zone, the core of a fold of the Hall Creek syncline. The shear zone extends over 1000 metres in width. The area contains abundant sericite, chlorite, quartz, carbonate, hematite, and epidote alteration in discrete to pervasive zones. The Elise Formation acts as the host rock for most mineralization around the occurrence. The formation’s lithology is mainly volcanic augite porphyry and chlorite schist, with lenses of felsic material from metasedimentary or intrusive sources. Mineralized veins occur as quartz-chalcedony-chert breccias within larger iron-manganese carbonate alteration halos. Sulphide minerals in the veins include pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite-tennantite, and bornite.
The property is underlain by highly schistose volcanics of the Lower Jurassic Elise Formation . . ., Rossland Group. These strike 305 to 290 degrees and dip 70 degrees south. Both mafic and felsic units are observed in the volcanic stratigraphy which is intruded to the east and southeast by plagioclase porphyry of the Middle to Late (?) Jurassic Silver King Porphyry. The mine occurs in the Silver King shear zone.
Mineralization is confined to three major shear controlled vein systems which parallel the regional Silver King shear zone and are cut by numerous east-west cross fractures. A gangue of quartz with some carbonate and siderite hosts pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena with minor amounts of sphalerite, stromeyerite, bornite, tetrahedrite, malachite, azurite and hematite. The major silver mineral is stromeyerite. Mineralized zones are somewhat erratic along strike and occur as blebs or lensoid features particularly in areas influenced by the intersection of east-west cross fractures with the main shear zones.
The mineralized veins at the Silver King occurrence are named Main, King, Kohinoor, Iroquois, and Queen. The veins display characteristics of polymetallic veins with sulphide-rich sphalerite, galena, copper, silver, and sulphosalt minerals hosted in calcite, and quartz alongside siderite, and rhodochrosite. Other mineralization occurs in the schistose, altered mafic and intermediate volcanic rocks of the Elise Formation as lower grade disseminated copper and silver mineralization.”
Giles Peatfield comments:
The “Minfile” write-up mentions some minerals for which I have not been able to find independent references. These include: rhodocrosite, chalcedony and tennantite. All of these would not be unexpected.
The Silver King mine on Toad Mountain was an important producer of silver and copper. Production began in 1889, and the heyday of production was is the period 1896 through 1901. Total production for the life of the mine, from 1889 to 1958 (intermittent) was, according to British Columbia official records: 202,049 tonnes, yielding: 138,214,612 grams (4,443,703 ounces) of silver; 8,896 grams (286 ounces) of gold; 6,789,739 kilograms of copper; 15,234 kilograms of lead; and 4,071 kilograms of zinc. It is important to stress that these figures are probably a mixture of mine-head grades and various smelter returns, so are approximations – for example, the low zinc recovery may reflect smelter conditions rather than geology.
The mine is of historical interest as it was the first discovery of importance in the Nelson area, and was the source of ore for the first Hall Mines smelter in Nelson, which was “blown in” in January 1896 (Basque, 1990). The second Hall Mines smelter was larger, and went on to be a custom smelter for ores from the region, including from the Slocan Silver Camp, but it was apparently never a great success (Taylor, 1978).

Comments on the Minerals Reported:
Acanthite: Reported by Hoffmann (1900) but not by any subsequent worker I can find.
Azurite: First reported by Dawson (1890) as the “blue carbonate of copper” and by several later workers.
Bornite: First reported by Dawson (1890); LeRoy (1912) made the point that it occurred in the “superficial portions”, i.e. near-surface part of the deposit. R. G. McConnell (quoted by Dawson, 1898) presented specimens to Dr. Hoffmann of the Geological Survey of Canada, which included “argentiferous bornite”, but there are no subsequent analytical data. Traill (1970) simply listed “bornite” but subsequently (1983) adopted McConnell’s “argentiferous bornite.” Searches for data regarding silver in bornite have not turned up any hard data in this regard – the whole question of “argentiferous bornite” is left as “an exercise for the reader.”
Calcite: First reported by Hoffmann (1900); some later workers referred to this simply as “carbonate”.
Chalcocite: This was reported only by Young (1961) who identified it in one hand specimen as an apparent supergene alteration product of bornite. His comment was that “Chalcocite appears predominant [over hematite] and is very sooty.” There are no analytical data to confirm the species.
Chalcopyrite: First reported by Dawson (1890) and by essentially all later workers.
Copper: Native copper was not reported by any of the listed workers, but the Pacific Museum of Earth at the University of British Columbia has a single specimen (#1281) described as copper with chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite, which came via W. J. Sutton, one-time Chief Assayer for the British Columbia Department of Mines. Sutton’s specimens became the foundation of the so-called Sutton-Thompson collection at the Museum.
Covellite: Reported by Craig (1958) and Young (1961) in polished section examination.
Galena: Most workers, beginning with Dawson (1890) have reported galena, but it seems not to have been a major constituent of the ore, although it apparently was more abundant on the nearby Dandy vein, which is regarded as part of the Silver King system.
Hematite: Reported by Craig (1958) and Young (1961), and by Höy and Dunne (2001).
Limonite: Described in hand specimen by Craig (1958); one suspects that others saw it but did not bother to report it.
Malachite: First reported by Dawson (1890) as the “green carbonate of copper”, collected by Mulligan (1952) and identified by Craig (1958) and Young (1961). No doubt others saw it but did not mention it.
Manganite?: In describing the minerals collected, Mulligan (1952) noted that “Predominant in the sparse quartz-carbonate wall-rock gangue are large lamellar aggregates of a black, submetallic, rather hard mineral, probably manganite.” Craig (1958) listed “black manganite” – his supervisor Dr. R. M. Thompson simply added “?”. Young (1961) described “A mineral which, has a metallic lustre, a dark brown streak, is fairly hard and occurs as lamellar aggregates in a fissure filling is thought to be manganite.” RMT’s comment here was “check this”, but I can find no record that this was ever done. There is probably a manganese oxide mineral here, but specific identity remains uncertain. Manganite is not listed as occurring here by Traill (1970, 1983).
Pyrite: First reported by Dawson (1890), and by several later workers. Pyrite does not appear to be a major constituent of the Silver King ore.
Quartz: First reported by Dawson (1890), and by several later workers.
Siderite: Described by LeRoy (1912) from the Dandy vein; by Craig (1958) in a hand specimen; and by Höy and Dunne (2001) as “iron-carbonate”.
Sphalerite: Dawson (1890) reported “blende” in the Dandy vein. Hoffmann (1900) reported it from the Silver King mine – the specific vein was not mentioned. Höy and Dunne (2001) reported that sphalerite was of minor importance, and the production records indeed point in this direction.
Stromeyerite: This is the species of principal mineralogical interest at the Silver King Mine. Hoffmann (1900) recorded that “Among the specimens brought in by Mr. R. G. McConnell . . . was one which has been identified by Mr. R. A. A. Johnston as being the species stromeryerite – a mineral not previously recognized as occurring in Canada.” LeRoy (1912) made the point that, like bornite, it occurred in the “superficial portions”, i.e. near-surface part of the deposit. Baragar (1950) – quoted in Milligan (1952) regarded stromeyerite as the principal as “. . . the only important argentiferous mineral, . . . .” Both Craig (1958) and Young (1961) confirmed the presence of stromeyerite in polished sections. Refer also to Johnston (1915) and Traill (1970, 1983).
Tetrahedrite Subgroup: First reported by Dawson (1890), and by most later workers. I can find no reported information regarding the silver content of the tetrahedrite, and as mentioned above it is not fully clear whether or not tennantite might occur here.
A final comment of interest is that none of the workers reported either native gold or native silver, even in polished section examinations.

Rocks Reported:
I have not listed the various rock types reported, as these are essentially all field designations, and there is considerable confusion in the names. Refer to the “Minfile” quote above for a reasonable summary.

Giles Peatfield
BASc. (Geological Engineering) University of British Columbia 1966.
PhD Queen's University at Kingston 1978.
Worked for Texas Gulf Sulphur / Texasgulf Inc. / Kidd Creek Mines - 1966 to 1985.
Vancouver based consultant 1982 to retirement in 2016.
Presently totally retired and happily living in Courtenay, B.C. (Vancouver Island) - preparing postings for Mindat, mostly on B.C. deposits / occurrences.

Select Mineral List Type

Standard Detailed Gallery Strunz Chemical Elements

Mineral List

17 valid minerals.