Ontario Mineral Inventory

Ontario Geological Survey
Permanent Link to this Record: MDI52A04NW00006

Record: MDI52A04NW00006

General

Commodities

Primary Commodities: Silver

Secondary Commodities: Copper, Zinc, Barite, Calcite, Fluorite, Lead

Location

Township or Area: Lybster

Latitude: 48° 14' 55.55"    Longitude: -89° 52' 3.15"

UTM Zone: 16    Easting: 287134.59   Northing: 5347925.54    UTM Datum: NAD83

Resident Geologist District: Thunder Bay South

NTS Grid: 52A04NW, 52A05SW

Point Location Description: Transfer

Location Method: Conversion from MDI

Access Description: Proceed west on Hwy 11-17 to Hwy 588. Turn left (south) on Hwy 588 and proceed to Nolalu. At Nolalu, turn left (south) on the Second Side Road and follow for 5.1 km. Turn to the right (west) on a gravel road. Follow this track for 3.9 km to an old arm on the left side of the road and proceed by foot from there. Continue down the road another 823 m to the former side of the mine buildings.

Exploration History

1882: vein system was discovered by O. Dounais. 1884: exploratory pits and minor drifts were developed. 1885: The property was optioned to a Cleveland company for a year. Some buildings were constructed and a tunnel was started. The company expended $10,000 on exploration pits, trenches and the tunnel. 1886: O. Dounais and the Tretheway brothers continued work on the drift. By May, the tunnel was 38.1 m long. A report from June states a winze 10.1 m deep had been found at this time, along with 3 shafts to depths of 19.2 m, 9.1 m and 7.6 m. In September, an English Company known as Silver Mountain Mine Company attained the property. 1887: By July, the No. 1 shaft was 36.6 m, The No. 2 shaft was 39.6, and the No. 3 shaft was 36.6 m deep. The No. 2 level had been extended 24.4 m west of the No. 2 shaft. The No. 1 level was 27.4 m west of the No. 1 shaft. A drift 36.6 m long was dug beneath the No. 4 and No. 3 pits. 36.6 m of winzes had been sunk. Some minor stoping had been done. By August, the No. 3 shaft was 51.8 m deep. 1888: the No. 2 level had been extended to 39.6 m west from the No. 2 shaft. The No. 1 level was extended to 179.8 m west from the No. 2 shaft. Raises and winzes were put up and sunk at various points along level No. 1. No. 4 and 5 pit had been connected by a little drift, and ore stoped away around the latter pit to a depth of 13.7 m from the surface. The No. shaft was 141.7 m deep. 1889: In February, a shipment of 4000 lb was made. By the middle of March, a total of 23.6 m of shaft had been sunk, 1025 m of drifting done, 142.6 m of winzes sunk, and 111.6 m of raises were put up. In April, a new shaft (No. 4) had been sunk to 29 m, about 91.4 m west of No. 3 shaft. By September, shipments of about $15,000/month were being made. 1890: An ore chute was opened up between the No. 3 and 4 shafts. Some stoping was done on the No. 4 shaft. By October, the No. 3 shaft was over 213.4 m deep. At least 7 new veins were found on the property. Total shipments were 22 tons of ore. 1891: The No. 3 shaft was 228.6 m deep. Work was suspended on the No. 4 shaft. 1892: Silver Mountain Mining and Milling Company acquired the property. Work ceased on the mine and the other mines in the area due to the decrease in the price of silver. 1897: The Argentite Mining Company acquired the property. Pumping out of the mine began. In July a shipment of ore from the dumps was sent to Aurora, Ill. By November, a new stamp mill had been erected and was working. 1898: The mine was closed down in September. 1947: McWilliams Beardmore Mines acquired the property and drilled 9 DDH. 1950: McWilliams Beardmore Mines suspended operations after extending tunnels, stoping, and drifting 64.0 m. 1954-55: Jem Exploration Company acquired the property and conducted diamond drilling.

Assessment Work on File

Geology

Province: Southern

Formation Group: Animikie Group

Geological Age: Paleoproterozoic  

Lithology

Lithology Comments

Feb 07, 2018 (Therese Pettigrew) - Silver Mountain is a mesa capped by a diabase sill, the erosion remnants of which vary from 0.6-30.5 m in thickness. Beneath the sills are nearly flat-lying Animikie shales more than 30.5 m thick. A fault zone striking east and dipping between 80 and 85 degrees on the north crosses the mesa. The rocks on the north side show a downthrow varying between 19.8-24.4 m relative to those on the south. The fault zone follows a depression averaging 30.5 m in width and in which there is an extensive deposit of drift. The fissures along the fault zone have been cemented with vein material. In the diabase along the top of the mesa, a simple vein up to 1.8 m in width occurs. In the Animikie shales, the vein material occurs as breccia cement and in a tangle of veins, some of which are a few feet wide, but the majority are only a few inches wide and are distributed irregularly through a zone the width of which varies between 3-30.5 m. The vein system has been traced for a mile along an east direction where it crosses the mesa, for about half a mile along a west-northwest direction down the western flank of the mesa, and for about half a mile along a NE direction down the slope on the eastern side of the mesa (Tanton, 1931).

Mineralization

Mineralization Comments

Feb 07, 2018 (Therese Pettigrew) - The vein material consists of the following minerals: calcite, barite, amethystine, smoky, and white quartz, green and purple fluorite, sphalerite, galena, pyrite, chalcopyrite, native silver, and argentite. The most abundant of the vein minerals are calcite and quartz; they are intimately associated and occur throughout the greater part of the vein system. Where fissure fillings are more than a foot wide, calcite predominates over all other constituents. Barite occurs, in wide fissure fillings, as coarsely crystalline seams up to a foot in width and several yards in length. Such seams have been observed only in the upper part of the vein system lying in or near diabase. Fluorite occurs along the walls of veins as discontinuous seams of irregular width, commonly a few feet or yards long and an inch or so wide. The seams are more abundant along the walls of veins less than a foot wide than in wider veins, and fluorite is absent from most of the wide veins. In some veins green and purple varieties of fluorite are interbanded in bands averaging one-tenth inch in width and roughly paralleling the walls of the vein, but in some seams one or other variety is present alone. A dark purple, almost black, variety, rare in the district, occurs near the east end of the vein system as exposed in mining location R 54. Galena and sphalerite are sparsely disseminated through the greater part of the vein system. Small local concentrations occur in intimate association with fluorite in seams commonly less than an inch wide along the marginal part of some veins. Chalcopyrite occurs in very small amount in some of the small concentrations of galena and sphalerite. Pyrite occurs in small amount along the middle of some veins and as an incrustation on calcite and amethyst in the walls of vugs (Tanton, 1931). Sample GCP-174 collected by the OGS in 1984 returned an assay of 0.01 opt Au, 1.48 opt Ag, 77 ppm Cu, 26 ppm Pb, and 189 ppm Zn. Sample GCP-175 returned an assay of 0.01 opt Au, 24.48 opt Ag, 54 ppm Cu, 30 ppm Pb, and 116 ppm Zn.

Mineral Record Details

References

Mono - Silver cobalt calcite vein deposits of Ontario

Publication Number: MDC010 Page: 65  Date: 1968

Author: Sergiades A.O.

Publisher Name: Ontario Dept. of Mines

Location:

Publication - Fort William and Port Arthur, and Thunder Cape Map-area, Thunder Bay District, Ontario; Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 167

Publication Number: GSC Memoir 167 Page: 115-117  Date: 1931

Author: Tanton, T.L.

Publisher Name: Geological Survey of Canada

Location: https://doi.org/10.4095/100799

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For detailed information regarding this mineral record please contact the Thunder Bay South Resident Geologist District Office