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Kerr
British Columbia, Canada
Main commodities: Cu Au


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The Kerr porphyry copper-gold deposit is located in the Sulphurets district in north-western British Columbia, Canada, (#Location: 56° 28' 03" N, 130° 16' 08" W).

Resource details include:

  135 Mt @ 0.76% Cu, 0.34 g/t Au (Unclassified reserves, Placer Dome, 1993),
  141 Mt @ 0.75% Cu, 0.36 g/t Au (Measured + indicated + inferred resource, Seabridge
                  Resources, 2000).

The geology of the Sulphurets-Mitchell Creek district is dominated by Lower to Middle Jurassic Unuk River Formation volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Hazelton Group. The sequence includes green to grey volcanic epiclastics, a pile of largely fine-grained marine sediments and an overlying sequence of massive red and green volcanic sandstones and conglomerates that cap the topographic highs of the coastal Rocky Mountains.

The Kerr deposits are entirely within a zone composed largely of moderately to strongly altered and sheared rocks, interpreted to be of volcanic, sub-volcanic or plutonic origin. Most of this zone can be described as a sericite schist, although andesitic tuffs and flows, and feldspar porphyry dykes and possibly flows can be recognized in the less altered intervals. This zone of altered and sheared rocks covers an elongate north trending area of 0.8 to 0.9 x 2 kilometres, flanked by comparatively unaltered or weakly altered fine-grained, brownish green clastic sediments and submarine volcanic rocks on the east, and by a thick unit of basaltic andesite on the west. A younger dyke swarm of fine-grained, weakly altered andesite dykes cuts across the schistosity. Both the altered zone and dykes have been dislocated by faults. Minor silty shale and siltstone occur on the western and eastern margin of the altered zone.

The main (or B Zone) mineralisation is basically a hypogene porphyry copper deposit with recoverable gold, developed in a sub-volcanic environment. It comprises a north-south trending, fault bounded block of massive, wholly silicified country rock which has subsequently been crushed to produce a ubiquitous, centimetre scale crackle-breccia. The hairline fractures of the crackle breccia are largely lined with fine, black, sooty chalcocite, with lesser chalcopyrite, native copper and pyrite at the fracture junctions and an accompanying assemblage of chlorite, sericite and pyrite. The faults bounding the mineralised block dip at between 50 and 75° to the west. Additional mineralisation has been recognised in a northern extension of the B Zone, the P or Pyramid Zone, which approximately 1 km to the north.

See the Brucejack and Eskay Creek records for more detail of the geology and setting of the district.

Much of the information in this summary is derived from the British Columbia Geological Survey online MINFILE record.

The most recent source geological information used to prepare this decription was dated: 2006.    
This description is a summary from published sources, the chief of which are listed below.
© Copyright Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd.   Unauthorised copying, reproduction, storage or dissemination prohibited.


    Selected References
MacDonald A J, Lewis P D, Thompson J F H, Nadaraju G, Bartsch R D, Bridge D J, Rhys D A, Roth T, Kaip A, Godwin C I, Sinclair A J  1996 - Metallogeny of an early to middle Jurassic arc, Iskut River area, northwestern British Columbia: in    Econ. Geol.   v91 pp 1098-1114


Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Ltd (PorterGeo) provides access to this database at no charge.   It is largely based on scientific papers and reports in the public domain, and was current when the sources consulted were published.   While PorterGeo endeavour to ensure the information was accurate at the time of compilation and subsequent updating, PorterGeo, its employees and servants:   i). do not warrant, or make any representation regarding the use, or results of the use of the information contained herein as to its correctness, accuracy, currency, or otherwise; and   ii). expressly disclaim all liability or responsibility to any person using the information or conclusions contained herein.

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