Origins of mineral deposits, Belt-Purcell Basin, United States and Canada: An introduction

The fill of the Mesoproterozoic Belt-Purcell Basin, which straddles the United States-Canada border within the Rocky Mountains of western North America (Fig. 1), consists of marine and nonmarine clastic and carbonate strata 15 to 20 km thick. Three giant metal-producing ore deposits or districts account for the bulk of the known metal endowment within the bounds of the Belt-Purcell Basin: (1) the syndepositional Sullivan Pb-Zn-Ag deposit in southern British Columbia (total production: Pb, 8.4 million tonnes [Mt]; Zn, 7.9 Mt; Ag, 0.0093 Mt; Lydon, 2000), (2) the mesothermal Pb-Zn-Ag veins of the Coeur d’Alene district in northern Idaho (total production: Pb, 7.5 Mt; Zn, 3.0 Mt; Ag, 0.052 Mt; Long, 1998; post-1997 data from USGS Annual Minerals Yearbooks), and (3) the Cretaceous porphyry copper deposit and associated polymetallic veins in the Butte district in Montana (total resource: Cu, 35 Mt; Zn, 4.6 Mt; Ag, 0.044 Mt; Long et al., 1998). The Sullivan Mine closed in 2001 after more than 92 years of production. Mining of 26 major vein deposits in the Coeur d’Alene district began in the 1880s and peaked about 1950. Production in the Coeur d’Alene district continues today from the Galena and Lucky Friday Mines (the latter closed for 2012 to refurbish the mile-deep vertical access shaft). Mining at Butte began in 1875, with copper production peaking in 1917. Mining continues today in the eastern upfaulted portion of the Butte porphyry copper deposit at the Continental Mine.