Scottie Creek Cr prospect, Bonaparte River, Kamloops Mining Division, British Columbia, Canadai

Regional Level Types
Scottie Creek Cr prospect	Prospect
Bonaparte River	River
Kamloops Mining Division	Division
British Columbia	Province
Canada	Country

The Scottie Creek prospect is located on the north side of Chrome Creek, a tributary of Scottie Creek, 5 kilometres east of Highway 97, about 20 kilometres north of Cache Creek, British Columbia.

There is a description of the geological setting and work history for this property on the British Columbia “Minfile” site, current to 1998. A portion of this description is quoted below; it is not immediately clear where Minfile has derived some of the rock and mineral information, but probably mostly from Whittaker (1983):
“The hostrock for the Scottie Creek prospect is an upper Paleozoic serpentinite wedge in the eastern facies of the Carboniferous to Jurassic Cache Creek Complex. This consists of a Late Triassic accretionary prism/subduction complex associated with the Nicola volcanic arc. The melange contains Pennsylvanian and Early Permian limestones, chert, basalt and ultramafic rocks in a matrix of Permo-Jurassic chert and argillite.

Locally, only serpentinite is exposed at the chromite showings. The serpentinite is massive with abundant bastite, orthopyroxene and olivine, thus suggesting a harzburgite protolith. At Scottie Creek, the serpentinite is 300 metres wide with an unknown strike length. The body trends northerly and has a subvertical dip. It is extensively fractured in many directions with no dominant phase although many strike north +/- 15 degrees and dip gently to the west. Dunitic zones are scattered throughout the harzburgite. Contacts between dunite and harzburgite are irregular and sharp. Locally, the serpentinite is intensely altered to a quartz-carbonate-talc assemblage. The Cache Creek rocks including the serpentinite are overlain to the west by Tertiary plateau flood basalts. Locally, diamond drilling on the Barbara claim, near the old workings, has indicated that a thin conglomerate unit sits directly on top of the serpentinite. The whole area is mantled by a thick cover of Pleistocene till and Quaternary alluvium.

Chromite mineralization is restricted to the dunitic parts of the serpentinite. Chromite occurs as disseminations, small stringers and massive lenses. The stringers vary from vague wisps to zones 2 to 30 centimetres wide and 20 to 40 centimetres long composed of medium-grained chromite. Locally these stringers swell into massive chromitite lenses. To date, exploration has failed to identify any large zones of mineralization but this could be due to the extensive and thick cover. Magnetite and minor pyrite are present.”
Giles Peatfield comments:
The Scottie Creek Cr prospect is interesting for several reasons, as will become clear in the detailed discussions of various minerals below.
There are no resource estimates available for the property. Brewer (1916), discussing the principal occurrences then known on the property noted that “A sample was taken by the writer of selected ore from the dump of several tons at the entrance of the open-cut. This assayed as follows: Chromium, 22.6 per cent, equivalent to 33 per cent chromic oxide.” Thomson (1919) reported that “At the time of my visit in April the ore-dump at the open-cut referred to in Mr. Brewer’s report had been increased to approximately 100 tons, and from a new open-cut about a quarter of a mile farther to the east, on the Iron Queen claim, approximately 150 tons of ore had been extracted. This was sampled, and gave on assay at the Provincial Assay Office: Chromic oxide (Cr2O3), 22.50 percent; silica, 27.2 per cent. The owners claim much higher values than the above figures would indicate.” There is an obvious discrepancy between the reported results of Brewer and Thomson – it would seem more likely, based on other sources of information, that Thomson’s figures are suspect, and should be Cr rather than chromic oxide.
The Pacific Museum of Earth at the University of British Columbia has a specimen (catalogue number 2277) from Scottie Creek, described as nickel-bearing with serpentine.

Giles Peatfield comments on Minerals Reported:
“Carbonates”: Reinecke (1920) reported “. . . carbonates, probably of magnesium and calcium, . . .”, but gave no definitive details.
Chlorite group: Reinecke (1920) noted that “Eugene Poitevin of the Geological Survey, Canada, collected samples of pinkish chromiferous chlorite and emerald green chromiferous garnet uvarovite from this locality, in the summer of 1918.” See comment below for garnet group.
Diamond?: Disclosure – diamonds do not occur here, but their supposed presence has become so embedded in the literature that explanation is required. The first reference to diamonds in chromite comes in Camsell (1911), discussing material from Olivine Mountain in the Tulameen area of British Columbia. He submitted material to R. A. A. Johnston at the Geological Survey of Canada, who reported (1912) finding diamonds in chromite from Olivine Mountain, and from the vicinity of Black Lake, Megantic county, Québec. Of more direct interest was Johnston’s comment that “A very interesting occurrence of diamond was noted in connexion with the chrome picotite of Scotty [sic] creek, Bonaparte river, Cariboo district, British Columbia.” Johnston reiterated this (1915) in his list of Canadian mineral occurrences. Reinecke (1920) repeated this information, in addition to the comments noted above for chlorite group. Poitevin and Graham (1918) reiterated the identification for the Québec material. Lang (1956), referencing a report by Harvie (1923), finally published a firm rebuttal of previous information, noting that “The only other suggestions of diamond occurrences in this country are reported microscopic-sized diamonds in the Bridge River [sic] and Tulameen regions of British Columbia, but later work showed that the supposed diamonds were synthetic periclase formed by heating samples of rock.” Traill (1970; 1983) concurred, although he did not mention the synthetic nature of the periclase. The bottom line is that contrary to early reports, diamonds DO NOT OCCUR in the magnesiochromite (q.v.) at Scottie Creek.
Feldspar group: Hoffmann (1903) reported “white felspar”, but gave no further data.
Garnet group: See comment above for chlorite group. However, Traill (1970) cautioned that “Uvarovite, the calcium-chromium garnet, is probably the rarest of the garnet species. The name has been loosely applied to chromian garnet, especially chromium grossular, and the Canadian minerals noted below [three Québec localities] are probably that species rather than uvarovite.” For a detailed discussion of this topic, refer to Tarassoff & Gault (1994), regarding chromian grossular from the Orford nickel mine, Quebec, and to Dunn (1978). It seems likely that the material from Scottie Creek is also chromian grossular, but no definitive data are available.
Gold: Thomlinson (1920) panned the gravels downstream from the chromite occurrences, and obtained a few gold colours. The panned black sand reported only low assays for gold.
Magnesiochromite: This is the main mineral of interest for this summary. Over the decades since it was first reported it has had many names, and several analyses. Hoffman (1903) reported it as “Chrompicotite”, comparing it to material from Dun Mountain in New Zealand; Johnston (1912) called it “chrome picotite” but soon after (1915) reverted to “chrompicotite”; Brewer (1916) described it as “chrome-iron ore”; Thomlinson (1920) called it “chromite”; Reinecke described “. . . chromite, or more properly chrompicotite.”; the name for this mineral was given as “magnesiochromite” by Palache, Berman and Frondel (1944); Ross, et al. (1954) called the similar mineral from Dun Mountain “chrome spinel”; Traill (1970) reported that “Magnesiochromite, referred to as chrompicotite, occurs at Scottie Creek, . . . .”; Whittaker (1983) referred “chromite” and “chrome spinel”; Traill (1983) repeated his earlier report; and Back (2022) notes that “magnesiochromite” is a valid mineral. Hoffmann (1903) reported an analysis of the mineral, made by R. A. A. Johnston in the Geological Survey of Canada laboratory, which has been repeated in several later publications. However, later analyses reported in Palache, Berman and Frondel (1944); Ross, et al. (1954); and Wittaker (1983) were in some disagreement, yielding substantially less Cr2O3 contents, and some variations in levels of other oxides. Of these later analyses, only Wittaker (1983) analyzed material from Scottie Creek; his analytical results for Cr2O3 are a full 10% less than those of Johnston (in Hoffmann, 1903).
“Magnesium sulphates”: Reinecke (1920) reported “magnesium sulphates’ but did not specify which of several minerals these might represent.
Magnetite: Reinecke (1920) reported magnetite, with what he called “chrompicotite”.
Platinum?: Thomlinson (1920) reported that “No platinum was seen in any of the placer samples taken, but Mr. Gagne informed me that small pieces of a pale-grey metal had been occasionally observed by men panning or sluicing for gold some years previously.” The panned black sand collected by Thomlinson reported only low assays for platinum. Thomlinson also sampled “chromite ore” from a drift at the north end of the property; a sample of this material assayed 0.10 ounce (Troy) per ton.
Quartz: Hoffmann (1903) reported “white to grayish-brown” quartz.
“Silica”: Reinecke (1920) reported “opaline silica”.

Other Databases

Link to British Columbia Minfile:	09INW 001

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References