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Granduc - Geology cont...
The deposit lies in a northwestern-trending belt of Mesozoic volcanic
rock, assigned to the Hazelton Group, close to the
east side of the "Coast Range Batholith" of granitic rocks. The sedimentary rocks in which
this deposit occurs are unfossiliferous at Granduc Mountain, but can be
traced north into beds at Unuk River containing fossils of Upper
Triassic age (Karnian). These are overlain by argillite, andesite,
greywacke and a conglomerate with granitic boulders. The conglomerate is
part of sedimentary beds containing early Jurassic (Hettangian) fossils.
The Coast Range lntrusives may include, therefore, members of Triassic
or earlier age.
The intrusive rocks at Granduc belong to three main groups whose
relative ages are not certainly established. The oldest group is
apparently confined to an area of Triassic rocks and consists of crosscutting
stocks and irregular bodies ranging from diorite to granodiorite. The
granodiorite of the oldest group is well foliated, suggesting introduction
during deformation, but the diorites are unfoliated and in part are
intensely sheared and converted to chloritic
schist. Andesite and andesite porphyry dikes occur in the mine. These
predate the ore and have been strongly sheared and folded. They may be assigned to the oldest of the three igneous suites (Triassic?) or to a
cupriferous syenite group (post-early Jurassic) that occur directly
north of the mine area.
The other two groups of intrusive rocks are
unfoliated. One group occurs as a northwesterly dike swarm, which crosscuts the Granduc ore zone and consists of diorite
and quartz diorite with chilled margins of andesite. These dikes
are offset a few hundred feet by the latest movements on the Granduc and
other parallel faults. Although clearly faulted by the late fault
movements, they do send out sill-like extensions within or marginal to
the Granduc fault zone suggesting that the early
fault movements predate the dike swarm injection.
The Coast granodiorite masses, which are the other unfoliated group
at Granduc, have not been seen to contact the dike
swarm. The general evidence Granduc fault, but were emplaced either
after or very late in the series of events that produced the complex
fold-fault patterns at Granduc. A large specimen with biotite
alteration, associated with GEOLOGY the ore, was taken by Dr. E. D.
Kindle of the Canadian Geological Survey, and may provide data on the
age of the ore. This might supply information on the suggests that these
masses are also relative age of the Coast Range granitic faulted by the
late movements on the rocks and the Granduc structures.
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