Epigenetic lead, zinc, silver, antimony, tin, and gold veins in Boulder Basin, Blaine and Custer Counties, Idaho: Potential for economic tin mineralization

Boulder Basin is in a northwest-trending belt of allochthonous Paleozoic rocks in the Boulder Mountains of central Idaho. Regional Tertiary extension resulted in widespread normal faulting and coeval emplacement of shallow-level intrusions and extrusive rocks of the Challis Volcanic Group. Epigenetic lead-zinc-silver-antimony-tin-gold vein deposits formed during Tertiary extension and are hosted within Paleozoic strata. The major orebodies are in the lower plate of the Boulder Basin thrust fault, in massive quartzite of the Middle Pennsylvanian to Lower Permian Wood River Formation. Anomalous concentrations of tin are present in the base-metal mineral assemblage of the Boulder Basin ore deposits. The tin-bearing veins in Boulder Basin are strikingly similar to Bolivian tin deposits. The deposit model for Bolivian tin deposits identifies buried tin porphyry below the tin-bearing vein system.