Erie Mine, Nizina Mining District, Valdez-Cordova Census Area, Alaska, USAi

Regional Level Types
Erie Mine	Mine
Nizina Mining District	Mining District
Valdez-Cordova Census Area	Census Area
Alaska	State
USA	Country

The locality is in the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve.
Location: The Erie mine is on the east valley wall of lower Root Glacier (MacKevett, 1972). It is at an elevation of about 4,600 feet, 2,500 feet east of Root Glacier and 2,600 feet south-southwest of elevation 5720. The mine is in the NW1/4 of section 9, T. 4 S., R. 14 E. of the Copper River Meridian. This is locality 93 of MacKevett (1976), and Cobb and MacKevett (1980) included it under the name 'Kennecott Copper Corp.'. The mine is shown on the McCarthy C-6 quadrangle (1993 edition).
Geology: The Erie, Mother Lode (MC090), Jumbo (MC091), and Bonanza (MC093) mines, all on the ridge between McCarthy Creek and Kennicott and Root glaciers, produced significant amounts of high-grade copper ore when they were operated by Kennecott Copper Corporation between 1911 and 1938. These mines developed several different orebodies but their underground workings were interconnected. Together they produced 4 million metric tons of ore with a grade of 13 percent copper. The estimated 536,000 tons of copper recovered was accompanied by the recovery of about 100 tons of silver (MacKevett and others, 1997). No other metals were of economic importance in these orebodies. Bateman and McLaughlin (1920) and Lasky (1929) provide important descriptions of the geology, mineralogy, and structure of these deposits. Cobb and MacKevett (1980) refer to the many Federal government publications, dating from the time of the Bonanza discovery in 1900, that contain information about them. MacKevett and others (1997) provide an excellent synthesis and interpretation of the structure, stratigraphy, economic geology, and geochemistry of these deposits. This record largely summarizes information provided by MacKevett and others (1997). The Erie mine produced 52,000 tons of ore containing 15.04 percent copper. The ore was worked from several levels between elevations of 990 and 1,370 meters. A long crosscut connects the Erie mine workings with those at the Jumbo mine (MC091). Production was from the main Erie vein, the 616 vein, and a few smaller veins. The Erie and other nearby orebodies are localized in the lower part of the Upper Triassic Chitistone Limestone. The base of the mineralization was usually about 27 to 37 meters stratigraphically above the contact of the Chitistone Limestone with the underlying Upper Triassic Nikolai Greenstone. The development of intertidal carbonate facies with stromatolites, bacterial mats, gypsum, and anhydrite in the lower Chitistone Limestone is one important control on the development and location of the orebodies. Steep, northeast-trending fissures up to 300 meters long are another important control on the location of the major orebodies. These fissures show minor displacement of bedding in the Chitistone Limestone and localize breccia and trangressive dolomite alteration. The breccia zones, thought by MacKevett and others (1997) to be early collapse breccia along solution-enlarged fissures, laterally envelop the orebodies and extend stratigraphically upward above them. The lower Chitistone Limestone is locally highly faulted and shattered at the Erie mine. The main Erie vein averages about 15 meters in height and is up to 3 meters wide. The orebody strikes about N 20-40 E, dips steeply southeast, and plunges northeastward, essentially parallel to stratigraphic dip in the host Chitistone Limestone. The vein becomes thinner and leaner to the northeast where it merges into a barren, brecciated, calcite-rich zone. The Erie vein bottoms on a bedding-plane fault about 30 meters above Nikolai Greenstone. The 616 vein strikes N 40 E, dips 50 to 60 SE, and is intermittently mineralized over a length of about 100 meters. It is up to 3.5 meters wide at its base against a bedding-plane fault. The few other small, northeast-striking veins that yielded some production were 30 to 90 meters in length. Typically the large high-grade copper deposits of the area, like the Erie vein, contain many minerals in the Cu2S-CuS system. Chalcocite and djurleite are abundant with minor amounts of covellite, bornite, chalcopyrite, digenite, anilite, luzonite, idaite, malachite, azurite, chalcanthite, and orpiment. Other minerals reported by Bateman and McLaughlin (1920) in minor or trace amounts, include tennantite, antlerite, sphalerite, galena, pyrite, and copper arsenates. Enargite reported by Bateman and McLaughlin was not identified by MacKevett and others (1997). Although the Chitistone Limestone-hosted, copper-rich ores are mostly chalcocite and djurleite, remnant clots of earlier minerals allow a definition of the mineral paragenesis. Early pyrite, now found only in traces, was replaced by chalcopyrite, which in turn was replaced by bornite and minor covellite. Temperatures of sulfide deposition fell during these stages from near 200 to 150 degrees centigrade. The main-stage ore minerals, chalcocite and djurleite, made up 95 percent of the ore and were deposited at temperatures of 90 +/- 10 degrees centigrade. Later, oxidized ore fluids overwhelmed reductants in the host rock and chalcocite was partly replaced by anilite and covellite and finally by malachite and azurite. The common alteration at the Jumbo and other Chitistone Limestone-hosted, high-grade copper deposits in the area is trangressive dolomitization. Dolomite replacement is approximately coincident with the breccia zones that laterally surround the orebodies and extend vertically above them. The replacement dolomite is coarser and lighter gray than the original dolostone and it lacks any evidence of bedding (Armstrong and MacKevett, 1982; MacKevett and others, 1997). The mineralogy and geochemistry of the high-grade copper deposits combined with fluid inclusion and stable isotope data, indicate that the high-grade copper ores were deposited by reactions between oxidized copper-rich brines which moved through Nikolai Greenstone and sulfur-rich fluids derived from the thermal reduction of gypsum in the presence of organic matter in the lower part of the Chitistone Limestone. The migration of the oxidized copper-rich brines to the site of deposition is thought to have accompanied regional deformation and low-grade metamorphism in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous (MacKevett and others, 1997). Related copper-bearing minerals were deposited in the underlying Nikolai Greenstone at about 112 Ma (Silberman and others, 1980).
Workings: The ore was worked from several levels between elevations of 990 and 1,370 meters. A long crosscut connects the Erie mine workings with those at the Jumbo mine (MC091).
Age: Cretaceous? The migration of the oxidized copper-rich brines to the site of deposition is thought to have accompanied regional deformation and low-grade metamorphism in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous (MacKevett and others, 1997). Related copper-bearing minerals were deposited in the underlying Nikolai Greenstone at about 112 Ma (Silberman and others, 1980).
Alteration: The common alteration at the Erie and other Chitistone Limestone-hosted, high-grade copper deposits in the area is trangressive dolomitization. Dolomite replacement is approximately coincident with the breccia zones that laterally surround the orebodies and extend vertically above them. The replacement dolomite is coarser and lighter gray than the original dolostone and it lacks any evidence of bedding (Armstrong and MacKevett, 1982; MacKevett and others, 1997). Oxidation of deposits is not related to the present land surface and practically the entire deposit has been partially oxidized, even in the deepest levels of mine.
Production: The Erie mine produced 52,000 tons of ore containing 15.04 percent copper. Production was from the main Erie vein, 616 vein, and a few smaller veins.

Commodities (Major) - Ag, Cu
Development Status: Yes; small
Deposit Model: Kennecott-type copper deposit (after MacKevett and others, 1997)

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Link to USGS - Alaska:	MC083

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References