Hurricane-Diane Prospect, Koyukuk Mining District, Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Hurricane-Diane Prospect	Prospect
Koyukuk Mining District	Mining District
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

This prospect is approximately 3 miles south-southwest of the Luna prospect (CH0101). See also: Luna (CH101), Gayle (CH091), Ginger (CH060), and Evelyn Lee (CH059). Alaska Kardex No. 00-31-53B (Kardex is a card file mining claim information system located at the State of Alaska DNR Public Information Center in Fairbanks).
Location: This site is at an elevation of about 4,200 feet approximately 5 1/2 miles north of Horace Mountain and a mile east of the head of Sheep Creek (secs. 28, 29, T. 34 N., R. 7 W., of the Fairbanks Meridian). The reference point is near the center of a mile-long northeast-trending zone of mineral occurrences. This zone constitutes the Hurricane-Diane prospect. The location is accurate within a 1/2-mile radius.
Geology: The Hurricane-Diane prospect is one of a number of copper occurrences that comprise the Chandalar copper belt. Information describing the geology of individual prospects generally is scarce. Early descriptions (Grybeck, 1977; DeYoung, 1978; Cobb and Cruz, 1983) combined this prospect with the Luna prospect (CH101). Together they were described as small skarn-hosted chalcopyrite deposits in Devonian Skajit Limestone intruded by a small greenstone-greenschist body (Cobb and Cruz, 1983). Later information has shown that they are distinct deposits. Newberry and others (1986) included them in a group of skarn deposits northwest of and related to the Devonian(?) Horace Mountain granitic plutons. Many of these skarns exhibit both garnet and pyroxene prograde and epidote and actinolite retrograde mineral assemblages, and Newberry and others (1986) stated that their mineralogy, mineralization, and alteration tend to place them in the category of continental-margin, porphyry-related copper skarns. Newberry and others (1986) noted that the Hurricane-Diane prospect is a Cu-Zn-Pb skarn, which suggests that it is a distal occurrence within the belt. Because the Zn and Pb values are nominal, however (see below), Newberry and others (1997) have classified the Hurricane prospect as a calcic Cu skarn. Ventures Resource Corporation (currently exploring Doyon, Limited lands in the area under an agreement with Doyon, Limited) classifies the Hurricane-Diane prospect as a copper prospect (URL http://www.venturesresource.com/). A hand-specimen description (Newberry and others, 1986) showed the mineralogy of the skarn to be principally garnet, epidote, actinolite, chalcopyrite, pyrite, and magnetite. The epidote-actinolite is described as part of a crosscutting retrograde assemblage. An analysis of the hand specimen gave values of 1.6 percent Cu, 105 ppm Ag, 0.2 percent Zn and 0.07 percent Pb. The prospect is in an area mapped by Dillon and others (1996) as principally Devonian Skajit Limestone, Ordovician black phyllite and marble, and Ordovician to Cambrian(?) calcareous-chlorite-quartz schist and quartzite. These units are intruded by Devonian aplite, a component of the Horace Mountain plutonic assemblage, and their contact-related tactite and calcareous hornfels presumably host the skarn mineralization.
Workings: Claims staked from 1967 to 1973 lapsed in 1977, and the land was acquired by Doyon, Limited via its Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act selections. Surface exploration only.
Age: Devonian(?) based on reported Early Devonian Pb/Pb zircon ages from the associated Baby Creek batholith and Horace Mountain plutons (Dillon and others, 1996).
Alteration: Contact metasomatic.

Commodities (Major) - Cu
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Cu skarn deposits (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 18b)

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	CH062

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References