Lena and Silver Wires Prospect, Kantishna Mining District, Denali Borough, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Lena and Silver Wires Prospect	Prospect
Kantishna Mining District	Mining District
Denali Borough	Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

The claims are in Denali National Park and Preserve and have been inactive for decades.
Location: The contiguous Lena and Silver Wire claims (Cobb, 1980 [OFR 80-363]) are at an elevation of about 4200 feet on the southwest flank of Spruce Peak. They are about in the center of the SW1/4 SW1/4 section 29, T. 15 S., R. 16 W., Fairbanks Meridian. The location is accurate within 500 feet. It corresponds to number 266 of Hawley and Associates (1978), 22 of Cobb (1972 [MF 366]), 56a of Bundtzen, Smith, and Tosdal (1976), 60 of Bundtzen (1981), and 85 of Thornsberry, McKee, and Salisbury (1984).
Geology: The country rock in the area of the Lena and Silver Wire claims, which probably have a common end line, is metafelsite of the lower Paleozoic Spruce Creek sequence. Graphitic phyllite, also of Spruce Creek affiliation, crops out southeast of the prospects. Both rock units strike NE and dip moderately to the NW, on the north flank of the Kantishna antiform (MM091) (Bundtzen, 1981; Thornsberry, McKee, and Salisbury, 1984, fig. K-2, v. 2). The two claims probably are on a sulfide-bearing quartz vein that strikes about N30E. The vein is 2 to 3 feet thick and contains pyrite, galena, tetrahedrite, sphalerite, malachite, and native silver. Locally, it contains nearly 50 percent galena (Davis, 1923, p. 132). Selected samples from prospect pits assayed 0.27 to 0.48 ounce of gold per ton, 129.6 to 180.3 ounce of silver per ton, 36 to 52.5 percent lead, 1.45 to 8.20 percent zinc, and 0.15 to 0.66 percent copper (Moffit, 1933, p. 333; Thornsberry, McKee, and Salisbury, 1984, v. 2). The native silver, and the high silver and gold assays indicate supergene enrichment of the deposit.
Workings: The veins were discovered and prospected before 1922 (Davis, 1923). At the time of Moffit's visit in 1931, they were owned by C. A. Trudy, commissioner of the Kantishna district (Moffit, 1933). The claims were restaked in 1965 but were inactive in 1983. It appears that very little work was done after the initial prospecting.
Age: The deposit is assumed to be Eocene (see record MM091).
Alteration: Oxidation of iron and copper minerals; supergene enrichment of silver and possibly gold.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Au; (Minor) - Cu, Pb, Zn
Development Status: Undetermined.
Deposit Model: Polymetallic veins (Cox and Singer, 1986; model 22c).

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Link to USGS - Alaska:	MM061

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References