Proposed Tombstone Area Park: A Preliminary Review of Mineral Potential (116 B)

Although the first claims in the Tombstone area were staked in 1901, most exploration to date has focused on high grade veins, skarns and uranium deposits, and pre-dates the search for bulk tonnage gold or shale-hosted nickel. Early reconnaissance geochemical programs by mining companies analysed a very limited range of elements, and assessment work on file covers only a small part (3.6%) of the study area. Recent GSC stream sediment geochemistry shows that compared to the rest of the Dawson map sheet, the Tombstone area contains highly anomalous gold, copper, molybdenum, tungsten, uranium, copper and rare earth values clustered around the Tombstone Suite intrusions, and anomalous nickel, copper, cobalt, chromium, zinc, iron and rare earth elements associated with a belt of Earn Group shale north of the proposed park. Known mineral deposits in the area include the Marn deposit (Minfile #116B147), a small, high-grade gold skarn with about 300 000 tonnes grading 8.6 g/t Au, 1% Cu, 0.1% W and 17g/t Ag, and the Tombstone deposit (Minfile #116B151), a very large, low-grade uranium resource with no published reserves. The entire tinguaite phase of the Tombstone Stock averages 78 pp, U (Olade and Goodfellow, 1978), with a number of high grade zones containing up to 2% U3O8. High grade silver veins on the south side of Tombstone Mountain were mined briefly in 1920 (Spotted Fawn occurrence, Minfile 116B057) but smelter results were not available.