The Idaho cobalt belt, northwestern United States — A metamorphosed Proterozoic exhalative ore district

Abstract

In the Idaho cobalt belt, originally exhalative, stratiform mineralization within the Proterozoic Yellow-jacket Formation has become increasingly coarse-grained and remobilized toward the northwest in the direction of increasing regional metamorphic grade. The Idaho cobalt belt is located about 40 km west of Salmon, Idaho in the northwestern United States. The most important deposit in the district is the Blackbird mine which produced copper-cobalt ore sporadically from the early 1900's until about 1960. The Iron Creek deposit at the southeast end of the belt has undergone greenschist fades, biotite zone metamorphism; zones of disseminated, veinlet and massive sulfides lie more or less parallel to bedding of quartzites and phyllites. The main ore minerals are chalcopyrite and cobaltiferous pyrite. Toward the northwest at the Blackpine mine, remobilization has concentrated most of the mineralization into relatively thin concordant and discordant veins containing chalcopyrite, pyrite and arsenopyrite. The cobalt is reported to occur within arsenopyrite. Further northwest at the Blackbird mine where the Yellowjacket formation has been metamorphosed to the lower amphibolite facies, zones of disseminated and coarse-grained vein ores lie approximately along the same stratigraphic zone. Chalcopyrite, cobaltite, arsenopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite are the dominant ore minerals. Up to 0.22 oz. Au/ton was present in some of the ore. In addition, tourmaline-bearing sedimentary rocks (tourmalinites) are associated with some of the Blackbird ores. The Salmon Canyon deposit at the northwest end of the belt has undergone upper amphibolite facies, sillimanite zone metamorphism. In these garnet-sillimanite gneisses, chalcopyrite is found as coarse blebs and cobaltite as large porphyroblastic crystals. Gold occurs in amounts up to 0.02 oz. Au/ton.

Elsewhere in the world the two most similar districts are the cobalt-bearing portion of the Zambian-Zairian Copperbelt of central Africa where Proterozoic Roan sedimentary rocks contain stratiform copper-cobalt ore-bodies over a distance of more than 500 kilometers, and the Sheep Creek district of Meagher County, Montana, which contains strata-bound copper-cobalt mineralization.

The Idaho cobalt belt is a strata-bound copper-cobalt district hosted by the Proterozoic Yellowjacket Formation and located in east-central Idaho within Lemhi County, approximately 40 kilometers west of Salmon, Idaho, northwestern United States (Fig. 1). Of the four main deposits described here (from southeast to northwest, the Iron Creek, Blackpine, Blackbird, and the Salmon Canyon deposits), the Blackbird mine is the most important in the district. It was discovered in 1893 and sporadically produced copper and cobalt until about 1960.

The Yellowjacket Formation has undergone an increasing degree of metamorphism toward the northwest. The deposits are largely strata-bound in a belt over 50 km in length, strongly suggesting a syngenetic mode of origin. However, the proximity of the district to satellitic granitic plutons of the Idaho batholith has prompted many investigators to suggest an epigenetic hydrothermal origin (Anderson 1947 and Purdue 1975). Remobilization of some of the mineralization into veins at the Blackbird mine, where most of the previous work has been concentrated, has also suggested an epigenetic origin. A more district-wide view of the mineralization points to a strong degree of stratigraphic control.