Imperial Mine, Rock Creek, Kettle River, Greenwood Mining Division, British Columbia, Canadai

Regional Level Types
Imperial Mine	Mine (Inactive)
Rock Creek	Village
Kettle River	River
Greenwood Mining Division	Division
British Columbia	Province
Canada	Country

The former Imperial mine is located on the east side of the Kettle River, about 5.6 kilometres north of the settlement of Rock Creek, British Columbia.
There is a description of the prospect on the British Columbia “Minfile” site, current to 2020, to which interested readers are referred; selected excerpts are quoted below:
“Mineralization at the Imperial is primarily hosted within carbonatized and silicified ultramafic bodies which intrude upper Paleozoic age greenstones and meta-sediments of the Knob Hill Group or similar aged Anarchist Group. Ultramafic rocks have been altered to magnesium-iron rich carbonates with mineralization being offset and apparently controlled by faulting of probable Tertiary age. Mineralization also occurs within sheared and sericitic greenstones of the Knob Hill Group but this type of mineralization is not extensive.
Mineralization in the carbonate appears as shallow dipping, heavy sulphide pods and lenses (“black leads’) and to a lesser extent as quartz-sulphide veins and banded sulphides over a strike length in excess of 80 meters and to a depth of up to 67 meters with an east-west dimension of at least 100 meters. Mineralization in the greenstones occurs as banded and disseminated sulphides.”
Comments by Giles Peatfield on minerals reported from the locality:
Arsenopyrite: Reported only by Clarke (1935). Given analytical results for arsenic in high silver material (Wood, 1991), the mineral would seem likely.
Clinochlore?: Freeland (1926) sent specimens of a “greenish mineral” to the offices of the Geological Survey of Canada in Vancouver for analysis, and was informed that: “’The greenish mineral plastered over the gangue has the very typical colour of a chlorite mineral and its optical properties bear out this resemblance. It might easily have resulted from the alteration of hornblende, but more probably still it is an alteration product of epidote, in which case it might be the chrome-chlorite mineral clinochlore. The colour is very similar to that of the chrome mica, mariposite, but neither its optical properties nor its association resemble this mineral.’”
Mariposite: This has been reported by several workers (see, e.g., Clarke, 1935; Kregosky, 1983; Wood, 1991), but see comment above regarding clinochlore. It is very common to see any green micaceous mineral in such environments described as mariposite, but sometimes this turns out not to be true.
Proustite?: Clarke (1935) reported this, as “ruby silver”, but gave no supporting data. I would regard it as tentative.
Pyrargyrite?: Wood (1991) reported this, which he described as “ruby silver”, but gave no supporting data. I would regard it as tentative.
Stephanite?: Wood (1991) reported this (which he and Minfile spelled incorrectly as “stefanite”), but gave no supporting data. I would regard it as tentative. It would seem likely that there is indeed a silver-bearing sulfo-salt mineral here, but which one remains unknown.
Tennantite?: Clarke (1935) commented that “The chief value is in silver which occurs in tennantite associated with galena, and also in ruby silver in the quartz.” He did not, however, provide any further data regarding his “tennantite” and I would regard it a tentative.

Comments by Giles Peatfield on rock types reported from the locality:
Listvenite?: This rock type, commonly referred to in this region as “listwanite”, is of common occurrence in the district (Peatfield, 1978; Fyles, 1990), although only a few of the bodies have base or precious metal minerals associated. One of the ways to recognize these rocks is by their elevated Cr and Ni contents, which is the case for the Imperial Mine occurrence. A problem with calling this particular material “listvenite” is that Mindat states that an essential mineral is fuchsite, or mariposite, which seems to be questionable in this case. Perhaps the definition requires modification?

Other Databases

Link to British Columbia Minfile:	082ESE113

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References