British Columbia Geological Survey Geological Fieldwork 1981
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NOTES ON THE PENTIC'PON GROUP A PROGRESSREPOW ON A NEW STRATIGRAPHICSUBDIVISION OF THE TERTIARY SOUTH-CENTRALBRITISH COLUMBIA (82E/L) By B.N. Church The name Penticton Group has beenproposed for Eocene volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Okanagan-Boundary region. The areas of recent studyrequired to delineate these rocksare shown on Figure 1. Figure 1. Index MP of areas of detailed study. 12 The principalresources of thePenticton Group arecoal, precious metal deposits, uranium, and geothermalenergy. The Group consists of sixwell-defined formations having an aggregate thickness of about 2 500 metres in thetype area near Penticton (No. 4, Figure 2). At thebase are polymictic conglomerates and breccias referredto as the Springbrook Formation and coevalbeds of the Kettle RiverFormation consisting of graniteboulder conglomerate, rhyolite breccia, and tuffaceoussedimentary rocks. Above this is t.he Marron For- mation composed mainly of thickandesite, trachyte, and phonoliticlava flows,succeeded upward by dacitic and some andesitic domes: of the blararna Formation.This is followed by volcanicbreccias and lacustrine and fluvialsedimentary rocks of the White Lake Formationand, uppermost., the Skaha Formationconsisting of alandslide complex and fang1.omeratebeds. The Group rests unconformably on pre-Tertiarygranitoids, metamorphosed Mesozoicsedimentary and volcanicrocks, and olderschists and gneis:oes. 1 2 3 4 5 6 HATCREEK TERRACE KELOWNA PENTICTON MIDWAY REPUBLIC MTN. W Z W z W 0 -.7 2 I TW wz 0 0 W Flgure 2. Correlation chart of major Tertiary units. 13 The agerange forthe Group, asdetermined by potassium-argonradiometric methods, is 48.4 Ma (wholerock) to 53.1 Ma (biotite) f1.8 Ma. Pre- liminarytests performed on theprincipal lava members indicate normal magneticpolarity. Overlying the Group areisolated patches of Miocene rhyolite(Olalla rhyolite, 13 Ma) 'plateaubsalt', andyounger 'valley basalt. ' In the Kelowna area'plateau basalt' occurs on Carrot Mountain ( 11.8 Ma) and Daves Creek (14.9 Ma). TheLambly Creek basalt (0.762 Ma) is the onlyso-called 'valley basalt' of theregion. Northand west of thetype area (see Nos. 1, 2, and 3, Figures 1 and 2) theconstitutent formations interfinger and arereplaced by units of the KamloopsGroup (Ewing, 1981). At TerraceMountain near Vernon the names NaswhitoCreek Formation, Rouleau Rhyolite, Attenborough Creek Formation, and Shorts CreekFormation are applied to Eocene volcanic and sedimentary unitsthat only partly correlate with the Penticton Group (Figure 2). Further west at Hat Creek few comparisonscan be made otherthan to say that the Coldwater Beds partlyresemble the basal Tertiary sedimentary rocks in the Okanagan area.Recent studies suggest that some part of thesebasal successions may be Cretaceous (K. Shannon, pers. corn.). To thesoutheast near Midway in the BOundary area the EOcene section is incompletebut strikingly similar to the type assemblage (Monger, 1968). In northern Washington Statenear the Republic area the O'Brien Creek Formation and Klondike buntain Formation, at the baseand top of the Eocene sectionrespectively, are correlated in part withthe Kettle River Formationand Skaha Formation of thePenticton Group (Pearson and Obradovich, 1977). However, thedacite-rich Sanpoil volcanics which underlie part of theRepublic graben are lithologically unlike the Plarron Formation and represent a significantuncorrelated unit. A checkwith Dr. T.E. Bolton in thespecial projects section of tRe Geological Survey of Canada on thepre-occupation of stratigraphic names hascleared the following list for formaluse in south-centralBritish Columbia: Area Nam Area Age Hat Creek LakeFinney Beds (Eocene) kdicine Creek Formation (Eocene) Hat Creek Formation(Eocene) TerraceMountainNaswhito Creek Formation(Eocene) Bouieau Rhyolite (Eocene) Attenborough Creek Formation (Eocene) Shorts Creek Formation (Eocene) Penticton Penticton Penticton Group (Eocene) Ke I owna Lambly Creek (Pleistocene)Basalt It isconsidered that name Hat CreekCoal Formation (Eocene) is sufficientlydifferent from Hat Creek beds (Oligocene)of Wyoming and Hat Creek Basalt(Recent) of northern California. 14 structuralcontrol of thevarious outliers of thePenticton Group relates to some east-west-trendingsynclines and to a pattern of north-south gravityfaults andpronounced conjugate shears of northeast and northwest orientation. These folds and fracturesare viewed as essential elements in a north-southdirected stress scheme thought to be responsiblefor the many graben-likestructures and overallbasin and range-likafabric of the region. The Hat Creekbasin is a typicalgraben. In this example thecentral zone of thevalley has beendowndropped on a series of north-southtension faultstrending subparallel to the direction of regional maKiman stress, thewalls of this grabenhaving been offset by northwest an,3 northeast- trendingconjugate shears. Vertical movementon thegraben faults is commonly inthe range of hundreds of metres. As viewed on ShortsCreek near Vernon, theTertiary bedshave been downfaulted inexcess of 700 metres against Bolder limestone and granite; at Hat Creek thevertical displacement is locally in excess of 1 000 metres. As a netresult of this movement, cormnon1:y thebase of thesecontinental beds is displaced well below mean sea levelelevation. Lateral movement on theshear faults is notreadily documented although it is suspectedthat the southern Okanagan andBoundary areas may have resided on a northeast-trendinggeothermal lineament simi1a:c to the present Reno, Nevada-Billings, Montana volcanic-geothermal belt (Grim, 1977). Thiscould explain the marked similarity of thestrstigraphy and petrography of the Eocene volcanicrocks of the Okanagan an83Roundary areas.This might also partly account for the resetting to Eocene of radiometric dates of crystalline basementrocks inthe region (Ross, 1974). The hypotheticalrepositioning of Penticton Group rocksin the south Okanagan andBoundary areasto juxtaposition on a northeast-trending geothermal belt would require a southeast-northwesttranslation of ab,out 80 kilometres.Extending the hypothetical geothermal belt and lithologicalcorrelations to the Highwood area of central Wmtana (similarities noted by Church, 1973, p. 75), a translation :in the order ofseveral hundred kilometres muld be required. It is notedthat lateral translations of this magnitu*have been recorded in theNorthern Cordillera(Norris, 1981, G.A.c. abstract, p. 29). REFERENCES B.C. Ministry ofEnergy, Mines & Pet. Res.,Geology inBrit.ish Columbia, 1975, pp. G99-Gl18; GeologicalFieldwork, 1978, Paper 1979-1, pp. 7- 15; Prelim. Map 35, Geologyof thePenticton Tertiary Outlier (revised 1980); Prelim. Map 37, Geologyof theTerrace Mountain Tertiary Outlier(revised 1980); Prelim. Map 39, Geoloqy of the Kelowna TertiaryOutlier (West Half), 1980; Prelim. Map 41, Geology of the Rock Creek Tertiary Outlier, 1980; Prelim. Map 45, Geologyof the Kelowna Tertiary Outlier (East Half), 1981. 15 Church, B.N. (1973): Geology of the White Lake Basin, B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines .s Pet. Res., 5ull. 61, 120 pp. Ewing, T.E. (1981): RegionalStratigraphy and StructuralSetting of the Kamloops Group, South-centralBritish Columbia, Cdn. Jour. Earth Sei., Vol. 19, NO. 9, pp. 1464-1477. GeologicalAssociation of Canada (1981): Symposium on 'The Last 100 Mil- lion Years of Geology and MineralDeposits in theCanadian Cordillera', in Abstracts, pp. 14 and 29. Grim, P.J. (1977): GeothermalEnergy Resources of theWestern United States,National Geophysical and Solar-Terrestrial Data Center. Monger, J.W.H. (1968): EarlyTertiary Stratified Rocks, Greenwood Map- Area (82E/2), British Columbia, Geol. Surv.,Canada, Paper 67-42, 39 PP . Pearson, R.C. andObradovich, J.O. (1977): Eocene Rocks in Northeast Washington - Radiometric Agesand Correlation, U.S.G.S., Bull. 1433, 41 PP. Ross, J.V. (1974): A Tertiary TnermalEvent in South-centralBritish Columbia, Cdn. Jour.Earth Sci., Vol. 11, No. 8, pp. 1116-1122. 16 THE RIDDLE CREEK URANIUM-THORIUM PROSPECT (82E/12W) By B.N. Church The Riddle Creek uranium-thorium prospect, 15 kilometres west: Of Summerland, was discovered in 1977 andacquired the same year by British Newfoundland ExplorationLtd. Work on theproperty to dateincludes line- cutting, mapping, soil geochemistry, and severalshort drill holes. The presentreport is based on recentgeological and scintillometer surveysand a lithogeochemicalstudy sponsored by theMinistry. GEOLOGICAL SETTING A large radioactive anomaly coincideswith an Eocene volcanic: centre near theheadwaters of RiddleCreek (Figure 1). The principalradioactive rocksinclude trachytes andmafic phonolites of the Marron Formationand consanguineousigneous intrusions of theCoryell-type. LOW-RADIOACTIVE COUNTRY ROCKS At thebase of the Tertiary section and north of the zone of anomalous radioactivity,poorly exposed polymictic boulder conglomerate beds are tentativelyassigned to the SpringbrookFormation. These rocks appear to beunconformably underlain by graniticphases of the Okanagan Batholith (Jurassic-Cretaceous) and overlain byunnamed andesites. The andesiteis form a significant formation in the northeast part of the area where lava and breccia are 250 metres thick.Alkaline andesite dominates (No. 1, Table 1) and is characterized by scatteredmicrophenocrysts of plagioclase and hornblendeusually less than 1 mtllimetre indiameter. Scintillometer readings on these rocks and other basal andbasement units range from 40 to 80 counts per second. RADIOACTIVE ROCKS Rocks that show anomalous radioactivity are principally