El Alamein Mine, Tulameen River, Similkameen Mining Division, British Columbia, Canadai

Regional Level Types
El Alamein Mine	Mine
Tulameen River	River
Similkameen Mining Division	Division
British Columbia	Province
Canada	Country

The former El Alamein mine is located about 5.5 kilometres west of the settlement of Tulameen, British Columbia.
There is a description of the prospect on the British Columbia “Minfile” site, current to 2017, to which interested readers are referred; selected excerpts are quoted below:
“The mine is developed in a shear zone up to 9 metres wide, striking 120 degrees and dipping 60 to 65 degrees southwest. The zone roughly follows the contact between argillite to the northeast and rhyolite porphyry to the southwest. It has been traced southeasterly from the river bank up the north slope of Olivine Mountain for 850 metres, over a vertical elevation of 190 metres. The northwestern part of the zone is hosted in a hornblende diorite dike, 6 metres wide, which also occurs in the hangingwall of the shear farther southeast. The dike-hosted section of the zone is 1.2 to 2.4 metres wide.
Hostrocks are variably altered in the shear zone. The footwall argillite and interbedded greywackes are only slightly altered, while the hornblende diorite and rhyolite porphyry are significantly altered. Moderately sheared material contains sericite, carbonate and chlorite, while intensely sheared material consists entirely of actinolite.
The zone contains narrow stringers of calcite and quartz erratically mineralized with native gold. The stringers are 2.5 to 15 centimetres wide and from 0.3 to 1 metre long. One set of stringers strikes northeast and dips 60 degrees southwest, and a second set strikes northwest and dips 45 degrees northeast. Gold is present in a section of the shear zone extending southeast from the river bank for 23 metres. The gold occurs as crenulated layers and discontinuous wisps well within calcite-quartz stringers, along partings of wallrock enclosed by vein material, or along the walls of calcite-quartz stringers. Pyrite and chalcopyrite occur in the veinlets and are disseminated in the sheared and brecciated diorite.”
“The deposit was discovered in 1937 when a slide exposed showings of native gold in the river bank. It was eventually mined from three adits developed in the steep south bank of the river by El Alamein Mines Ltd. Gold production between 1949 and 1951 amounted to 6252 grams recovered from an unknown amount of ore.”
Further comment by Giles Peatfield:
There are reports (see Nelson, 1960) of Chinese placer miners recovering platinum from gravels immediately down-stream from the mine. The El Alamein mine owners thought that there might be platinum in the vein material, but samples taken by Stevenson (1950) returned nil assays. It is more likely that the platinum recovered by the Chinese placer miners was derived from the Tulameen ultramafic complex to the west (see, e.g., Nixon and Rublee, 1988).
Comments by Giles Peatfield on the minerals reported from the locality:
Marcasite: Reesor (1949) identified marcasite, which he regarded as an alteration after pyrrhotite.
Pyrrhotite: Reesor (1949) noted that the mineral he identified as pyrrhotite on optical grounds occurred in very small particles. The identification was confirmed, by X-ray analysis, by Dr. R. M. Thompson.
Various silicate minerals: These were identified by Stevenson (1950) by thin section examination.

References

Other Databases

Link to British Columbia Minfile:	092HNE022

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