Argentum, Cobaltus veritablis, id est magnificus et terriblus.
29,000 ounces to the ton, Cobalt Ontario. The white metal paradise. And for a long time, nobody knew it was there. Silver is not as easy to recognize in veins as people think. For the most part is is black flecks in calcite veins, or aresenopyrite-skutterudite veins containing silver.
The structure is Cobalt is short discontinuous splay fractures in massive rocks, sediments, diabase, and volcanics. It appears to be related to what could be a semi-extrusive rock, the nipissing diabase and its lower contact. The veins are hydrothermal and perhaps precipitated at low temperatures from the top - down. The system of diabase/silver intrudes the Huronian for about 100 miles in radius of Cobalt, and even many miles away, near Matachewan, there are recored veins of up ot 800 ounces per short ton. The diabase of the Thunder Bay area is also associated with silver os similar characteristics. One mine on Superior's shore ran at the turn of the century, and made good money. Silver Islet.
Cobalt structure is much tougher to figure than gold structures, which are usually deep seated and related to long predominant shear zones, and axial planar faults. Cobalts veins, are sometimes concordant with the Temiscaming fault, to which they are closely related, but they trend in any sort of direction, seemingly unrelated to any major direction of crustal movement.
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