At Juneau, Alaska, great dikes of albite-diorite intrude greenstones and schists, and low-grade gold ores occur in shattered portions of the diorite. These ores were mined on a great scale at the Treadwell Mine.
Another famous low-grade deposit is the Homestake Mine in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where pre-Cambrian slates and schists of sedimentary origin are impregnated with gold, associated with quartz, dolomite, calcite, pyrite, and other minerals. The origin is supposed to have some connection with intrusives into the schists; but the relations of the ores to intrusives, both in age and in place, present many puzzling questions which make conclusion as to origin very difficult.
In the Cripple Creek district of Colorado, a volcanic neck two or three miles in diameter breaks through pre-Cambrian granites, gneisses, and schists. The volcanic rocks consist mainly of tuffs and breccias cut by basic dikes. The ore bodies are in fissures and sheeted zones, principally in the granitic rocks, but associated with these dikes. The ore is mainly gold telluride, in a gangue of quartz together with pyrite and a variety of minerals characteristic of hot-water solutions. Also the wall rocks have the characteristic hot-water alterations. There is slight enrichment near the surface.
At Goldfield, Nevada, native gold is found in surface igneous flows of a dacite type, which have undergone extensive hydrothermal alterations characterized by the development of alunite (a potassium-aluminum sulphate), quartz, and pyrite. The ore fills fissures to some extent, but is mainly a replacement of the wall rock. Association with typical hot-water minerals and hydrothermal alterations of the wall rock are again believed to indicate the origin of the ores through ascending hot solutions from a deep source.
One of the interesting features of this occurrence is the abundance of alunite. Sulphate minerals are commonly formed by oxidizing solutions. The abundant presence, therefore, of a sulphate mineral with minerals of a primary deep-seated source has led to much discussion of origin. The hypothesis was developed that these minerals result from the interaction of deep-seated sulphide-bearing solutions with surface oxidizing solutions.[35] It may be noted that in recent years other sulphate minerals have been occasionally regarded as primary, including gypsum, anhydrite, barite, and others. It has been suggested that if igneous emanations contain free oxygen and sulphur, or sulphur dioxide, it would be expected that as they become cool sulphur trioxide would be formed which would result in the sulphate at suitable temperature.[36]
Other deposits containing gold are discussed in connection with silver on following pages.
SILVER ORES
Economic Features
Silver has two important uses—in money and in the arts. As money, it is used in the United States and Europe for subsidiary coinage,—silver coins normally circulating at more than their intrinsic value,—but its greatest monetary use is in India and China, where it has been the basis for the settlement of foreign exchange balances. In China also it is the money standard of the country. In the arts, silver is employed chiefly in the making of articles of luxury, such as jewelry and tableware. In the Orient this use is closely related to its use as money, since the natives invest their savings both in silver jewelry and silver coins. There is some consumption of silver by certain chemical industries, and quantities of increasing importance are used in the form of silver salts by the photographic and moving picture industries. It has been estimated that before 1914 about two-thirds of the new silver produced went into the arts and one-third into money. During the war, however, increasing amounts were used in coinage, and less than one-fifth of the output was used in the arts. Demands for silver for monetary purposes will probably continue to take the larger part of the world's production for some time. In this connection it may be noted that India has adopted a gold standard, but that the conservative habits of the population will doubtless continue to call for large amounts of silver.
About half of the silver production of the world comes from the dry or siliceous silver ores, which are mined solely for that metal and the associated gold; and about half of the production is obtained as a by-product in the mining of other metals, principally copper and lead. The average grades of these ores, in combined values of gold and silver, were referred to on p. 228. While the aggregate amount of silver obtained as a by-product of other ores is large, the percentage of silver in the copper or lead in any mine is ordinarily very small. Consequently the world output of silver depends to a considerable extent upon conditions in the copper- and lead-mining industries.