Red Creek; Wolf Den Prospect, Haines, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Red Creek; Wolf Den Prospect	Prospect
Haines	City Borough
Alaska	State
USA	Country

Location: The Wolf Den prospect is located on the north slopes of Flower Mountain at an elevation of approximately 2,500 feet; it is 3.9 miles, S22E from Pleasant Camp on the Alaska-British Columbia border. It is in the SE1/4, section 36, T. 28 S., R. 53 E. of the Copper River Meridian. It's location is taken from Still and others (1991). Rubicon Minerals (1998) refers to a Red Creek prospect that is reported to be 3 miles east of the Main Zone/Palmer prospect (SK066), which places it very close to the Wolf Den prospect. The two are combined here, as they may be the same occurrence despite somewhat different descriptions.
Geology: Two different sources, Still and others (1991) and Rubicon Minerals (1998) provide similar locations for prospects with differing names and descriptions. Still and others (1991) describe the Wolf Den prospect as quartz-pyrite-arsenopyrite-sphalerite veins in a tan dike less than 10 feet thick. The veins are up to 0.3 feet thick, extend up to 5 feet in length, and are confined to the dike. Samples from the veins contained up to 11.4 ppm gold and 3,500 ppm zinc. A 5-foot-long chip sample of slate with pyrite bands collected upstream form the dike contained 0.103 ppm gold and 225 ppm zinc. Rubicon Minerals (1998) refers to an unpublished Cominco Alaska report that describes the Red Creek prospect as a, '...rhyolite fragmental with a small two-foot-thick exposure of a massive pyrite breccia in a creek bed.' They also report the discovery of barite and semi-massive pyrite at the site in 1998 and cite samples with 2,080 ppm zinc and 12.83 ppm mercury. Rubicon Minerals (1998) interprets the Red Creek prospect to be the most southeasterly known prospect of a mineral trend that extends to the northwest through the Main Zone/Palmer (SK066), Little Jarvis (SK069), and an unnamed (SK070) prospect. The descriptions for this prospect suggest both a volcanogenic massive-sulfide deposit of probable Late Triassic age (Still, 1984 [OF 118-84]; Newberry and others, 1997), and Cretaceous or younger, auriferous quartz-sulfide veins within a northwest trending zone of quartz-sulfide veining in metasediments (Wright, 1904 [B 225 and B 236]; Eakin,1918 and 1919; and MacKevett and others, 1974).
Workings: The Red Creek prospect was discovered by Cominco Alaska in 1990. Additional prospecting by Rubicon Minerals and its associates in 1998 discovered barite and semi-massive pyrite breccia (Rubicon Minerals, 1998).
Age: The Wolf Den prospect, if different from Red Creek prospect, may be related to Cretaceous plutonism. The description of Red Creek suggests it is a volcanogenic massive-sulfide deposit correlative with the Late Triassic Windy Craggy and Greens Creek deposits (Still, 1984 [OF 118-84]; Newberry and others, 1997).
Alteration: Based on its similarity to the Golden Eagle prospect (SK047) and other occurrences in the area, the tan dike is probably a mafic dike that has been altered to a silica-carbonate rock (Still and others, 1991).

Commodities (Major) - Au; (Minor) - Hg, Pb, Zn
Development Status: None
Deposit Model: Polymetallic quartz-sulfide vein and/or a volcanogenic massive sulfide. There

Other Databases

Link to USGS - Alaska:	SK063

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References