Baseline geochemical studies for resource evaluation of D-2 Lands - geophysical and geochemical investigations at the Red Dog and Drenchwater Creek mineral occurrences

Abstract

Major zinc, lead and barite mineralization has been discovered at Red Dog and Drenchwater Creeks in the DeLong Mountains of north-western Alaska. The host rocks for the mineral occurrences are carbonates, cherts, shales, and dacitic volcanic rocks of the Mississippian Lisburne Group. The host rocks are deformed in a narrow belt of imbricate thrust sheets that extend from the Canadian border to the Chukchi Sea. The rocks strike generally east-west and dip to the south. The sulfide minerals occur as stratiform mineralization parallel to bedding planes, as breccia fillings and vein replacements, and as disseminations in the various host rocks. The primary ore minerals are sphalerite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, and galena. Barite occurs as massive beds up to 90 meters (300 feet) thick at Red Dog Creek and as nodules, veinlets, and disseminations at Drenchwater Creek. Close spaced soil sampling, mercury vapor sampling, and magnetic and radiometric surveys were conducted over the areas of exposed sulfide mineralization to test the response of these techniques to these types of deposits in northern Alaska. There is potential for additional deposits of this type in the Lisburne Group of the entire northern Brooks Range. These techniques provide a rapid low cost method for the discovery and preliminary evaluation of these types of mineral occurrences in northern Alaska.