Lode Metals
CONTENTS
General Review . -
Page
3
Notes on Metal Mines _ — _ .
6
Alsek River
6
Cassiar
6
Portland Canal. . ... ...
6
Alice Arm
8
Observatory Inlet . .
10
Queen Charlotte Islands
... . 11
Ecstall River ... .
_. 12
Scotia River . - . ~ . .
„ 12
Kitimat . -
. ... 13
Cedarvale . , „ ___
13
Hazelton... ...
13
Smithers . .
13
Eutsuk Lake . _ ~ ..
14
Omineca ~ . . .
14
Cariboo .. — ~ — .
15
Clinton __ .. ....
19
Lillooet „ - ..... . .
..... 20
Anderson Lake ....
24
Highland Valley. . '
25
Merritt
26
Nicola Lake , ... . ....
._ 41
Greenstone Mountain ._ _
... .... . 41
Tulameen... .. ....
42
Ashnola River .
55
Similkameen River. _
55
Copper Mountain
Princeton... ... ,,,,,,
... 57
57
Hedley
57
2 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
Notes on Metal Mines—Continued Page
Keremeos 58
Fairview Camp 61
CampMcKinney 62
Beaverdell 62
Greenwood 63
Phoenix 65
Rossland 66
Trail u 66
Nelson 66
Ymir . 67
Salmo 68
Nelway 71
North Kootenay Lake 72
Woodbury Creek .'. 74
Paddy Peak 75
Kaslo 75
Retallack-Three Forks 75
Sandon 76
Springer Creek 76
Burton 77
North Lardeau 77
South Lardeau 79
Kimberley 82
Windermere 83
McCulloch Creek 85
Revelstoke 86
Skagit River 87
Hope 87
Howe Sound 89
Texada Island 89
Bute Inlet 90
Vancouver Island 90
Reports on Geological, Geophysical, and Geochemical Work 117
GENERAL REVIEW
All principal metals but lead showed an increase in the average Canadian price
paid in 1960 as compared to 1959. The price for lead decreased a very small
amount. The price for gold was up about 1 per cent owing to a slight change in
the average rate of exchange. The price for silver increased a little over a cent an
ounce, the price for copper increased about a cent and a quarter, and the price
for zinc increased about a cent and a half, compared to 1959. The New York
price for silver was steady at 91.375 cents per ounce. The United States price for
copper started 1960 at 31 cents per pound and closed just below 27 cents per
pound. The New York price for lead was steady at 12 cents per pound, only to
fall to 11 cents in December. The East St. Louis price for zinc started 1960 at
12.5 cents per pound and fell to 12 cents at the end of the year.
Gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc produced at British Columbia lode mines
in 1960 had a value of $112,735,769. Miscellaneous metals, including iron ore,
nickel, tin, and minor metals recovered at the Trail smelter, had a value of
$17,714,969. The total quantity of ore mined at all lode mines amounted to
8,242,703 tons and came from sixty-seven mines, of which thirty-one produced 100
tons or more. The average number employed in the lode-mining industry in 1960,
including mines, concentrators, and smelters, was 7,423.
In 1960 twenty-eight mills were operated—sixteen throughout the year and
six on a seasonal or intermittent basis. Of the latter, two were operated by lessees
and one accepted custom ore. Four mills closed and one small mill at Torino operated for the first time. The Pioneer mine shut down after thirty-five years of continuous operation, Cowichan Copper after three years, and Hualpai Enterprises
after less than one year. At the Mastodon mine, after a seven-year closure, production was resumed in June and ceased in October. Of the year-round operating
mills, three treated ores of gold, three copper, seven silver-lead-zinc, two iron, and
one nickel.
The Trail smelter recorded custom receipts of 10,043 tons of ore from thirty
properties, 9,468 tons of which, from seven properties, obtained a silica bonus in
excess of the treatment charge. The smelter also recorded custom receipts of 1,228
tons of lead concentrates and 35,331 tons of zinc concentrates. Totals of approximately 15,470 tons of lead concentrates and approximately 41,660 tons of zinc
concentrates were shipped out of the Province for smelting. Copper concentrates
were shipped to the Tacoma smelter, except for the output of Cowichan Copper,
the copper concentrates recovered by Texada Mines Ltd., and the copper contained
in bulk nickel concentrates from Giant Nickel Mines Limited, all of which went to
Japan. All iron-ore concentrates, amounting to 1,156,297 tons, were shipped to
Japan.
The production of gold was higher than in 1959 and, due partly to a slightly
higher value of the American dollar, the total value was approximately 10 per cent
higher than in 1959. This was because of increased production at Bralorne, new
production at Premier and Camp McKinney, and an increase in the production of
copper, of which gold is a by-product. The Pioneer mine closed in August due to
depletion of reserves, after thirty-five years of continuous operation. Total production for the life of the mine was approximately 1,331,500 ounces of gold from
almost 2Vi million tons of ore. The Cariboo Gold Quartz' Aurum mine encountered a better grade of ore than in 1959, and the company was engaged in opening
up the new Burnett ore zone in the Mosquito Creek section of the property. The
old Cariboo Amelia at Camp McKinney produced again after a lapse of fifty-seven
4 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
years since the last company operation and, aided by the bonus for siliceous ore,
shipped direct to the Trail smelter.
The output of silver ore was less than the average for some years past. However, more silver was produced than in 1959, because of the increased production
of lead.
Copper production about doubled, and was paid for at about 1V4 cents per
pound more than in 1959. Cowichan Copper closed down for lack of ore late in
1960, but at the same time it was announced that the Sunloch property had been
leased and that the mill at Cowichan Lake would be transferred to the Sunloch at
Jordan River.
At Craigmont, preparation of an open pit began in June, and at the end of
1960 construction was under way at the site of the proposed 4,000-tons-per-day
mill. At Bethlehem no agreement had been reached at the end of 1960, although
a considerable amount of investigational work had been done by the company on
behalf of Sumitomo Metal Mining Company of Tokyo. The Old Sport mine of
Coast Copper Company Limited was being readied for production, after twenty
years of inactivity; the concentrates will go to Japan.
Exploration for copper continued at a good pace, although there was a weakening of activity in some parts of the Merritt-Highland Valley area. Some ground
has been gone over by more than one company, and it would seem that techniques
for the demonstration of anomalies have rather overshadowed the techniques for
their elucidation. Recent work has in no way narrowed the " copper belt," but it
has shown that orebodies are not easy to find.
Copper exploration continued in the northwest part of the Province, at several
localities, extending from the vicinity of Stewart to the Alsek River.' Geological
mapping done by Newmont Mining Corporation in the general Leduc-Unuk Rivers
area demonstrated an exploration technique new in British Columbia. This was
systematic regional mapping, of a sort usually done by governmental agencies, carried out over two seasons by a group of geologists supported by helicopter. As a
result, a decision was reached early in January, 1961, to do additional development
work on the Granduc property and to investigate other recently discovered showings.
The production of lead was up 16 per cent from that of 1959, an increase
largely the result of mining ore with a higher lead content at the Sullivan mine.
The output of the other larger mines was lower, and there was a drop in production
from the Slocan. The production of zinc showed little change compared to 1959.
The Mastodon mine, which had a short period of production in 1952 and had lain
idle for nearly seven years, was reopened and the mill operated for five months.
The operation failed owing to lack of ore and inability to recover oxidized sulphides.
Work on the Duncan Lake property by Consolidated proved the existence of
a mine, but the outlook for lead was deemed too unsatisfactory to warrant an operation at present, and the development crew was withdrawn. Interest in the area did
not diminish, however. In other parts of the Province, exploration for lead and zinc
was at a low ebb.
The importance of the magnetite deposits in the coastal region continued to
grow, in spite of the fact that one operation was closed. Prospecting was done, and
several properties were under development or exploration. A magnetite deposit
of relatively large apparent size was discovered just east of Kennedy Lake on Vancouver Island, and was at once investigated by diamond drilling. The Annual
Report of the Minister of Mines for 1902 records the presence of a " very marked
magnetic attraction " at this site and the fact that an unsuccessful attempt had been
made to reach bedrock to investigate the cause of the attraction.
LODE METALS 5
Nickel was exported to Japan in the form of a bulk concentrate from the Giant
Nickel operation, after termination of a contract with Sherritt-Gordon Mines Ltd.
An activated raise platform, or, more simply, a raise machine, was used at
two properties to drive vertical raises 310 and 465 feet. These machines have
saved time and expense in driving long raises. Ammonium nitrate blasting agent,
introduced into British Columbia quarries in 1957, was the most used blasting
material in open-pit mines and quarries in 1960, when more than a million and a
half pounds was used, twice the quantity used in 1959.
6 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
NOTES ON METAL MINES
ALSEK RIVER*
Copper-Cobalt
(59° 137° N.W.) Head office, 25 King Street West,
Windy and Craggy Toronto. H. V. Fraser, president; Alex. Smith, manager;
(Ventures Limited) J. McDougall, geologist in charge. The Windy and Craggy
groups comprise fourteen recorded mineral claims and are
about 20 miles north of the junction of the Alsek and Tatshenshini Rivers.
Copper and cobalt mineralization, occurring in a massive pyrrhotite replacement of pillow lavas, outcrops between the head wall of a cirque and precipitous
bluffs to the north. Using a Hiller 12e helicopter for transportation, a 9- by 12-foot
prefabricated building was assembled on the property. The helicopter was used to
service a crew of eight.
In the period July 28th to October 1st, eleven packsack holes, totalling 800
feet, were drilled and a topographical and geological survey of the property was
made.
The property was not visited.
CASSIARf
Gold
(59° 129° S.W.) This property consists of seventy-three
Copco recorded claims—Copco Nos. 1 to 69 and Cote Nos. 1 to 4.
These claims, which were located by J. J. Copeland and
J. I. Couture, cover the showings formerly held by Benroy Gold Mines Limited
and originally known as the Cornucopia group. The group is on the east slope of
Quartzrock Creek valley and 2 to 3 miles north of McDame Lake. The showings
have been described in the 1947 Annual Report.
During the summer of 1960 a Gibson self-amalgamating mill was installed
near the lower extremity of the exposed part of one of the quartz veins containing
visible gold. It has been reported that this mill treated 25 tons of vein material
during the season.
Work on the property, which was carried out by three men, included the construction of approximately half a mile of road between the Cassiar road and the
mill-site.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1946, p. 61; 1947,
pp. 70-72.]
PORTLAND CANAL
fExploration activities supplied by aircraft based at Stewart were carried on
by Granduc Mines, Limited, Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited,
and The Granby Mining Company Limited.
The Granduc company, under the supervision of G. W. H. Norman and
employing a large crew of geologists and geophysical operators, made extensive
air-borne geophysical surveys, ground geophysical surveys, and geological surveys
in the area lying between Granduc mine and the Unuk River. As a result of their
air-borne geophysical surveys, the company in June located twenty-four claims on
the north side of Fewright Creek, 248 claims along the Unuk River on the north
slope of McQuillan Ridge, and seventy-eight claims at the junction of Gracey Creek
and south Unuk River.
* By W. C. Robinson.
t By Stuart S. Holland.
LODE METALS
The Newmont company, under the direction of D. M. Cannon, did some
exploration work on Surprise Creek west of Meziadin Lake on claims located by
R. K. Watson, of Stewart, also on their Todd Creek showing, which was located
in September, 1959.
The Granby company prospectors were supervised by Keith Fahrni.
Gold-Silver
Tide Lake (56° 130° S.E.):
East (Dempster
Exploration
Company Ltd.)
Company office, 2281 Yonge Street, Toronto. L. Dempster,
president; C. Riley, consulting geologist. The property,
which is on the west side of the Tide Lake valley, consists of
fourteen recorded claims held under option from A. Phillips,
of Stewart. The property has been described in the 1946
Annual Report. Work in 1960, which was carried out by a crew of five men under
the direction of D. Irving, commenced on June 1st and was suspended on September 30th. Initial work consisted of the cleaning-out of underground workings
to make them accessible for the detailed geological examination which followed.
Subsequently, 1,248 feet of drilling was done underground and 691 feet of drilling
was done on the surface.
Equipment on the property included a Bull Moose C 25 crawler. This tractor
was used to construct an airstrip, measuring 1,350 by 60 feet, on the Tide Lake
flats. This airstrip enabled the camp to be serviced by wheel-equipped aircraft
based at Stewart. The property was not visited.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1927, pp. 106, 107;
1930, p. 117; 1939, p. 66, under the name "Pioneer group"; 1944, p. 53; 1946,
pp. 68-72; 1950, p. 76; 1953, p. 90.]
Bowser Lake (56° 129° S.W.)*
Copper
Fifty-two recorded mineral claims, Todd Nos. 1 to 52, are
Todd Group held by Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited.
The claims are at the head of Todd Creek, approximately 30
miles north of Stewart. The showings are reported to consist of chalcopyrite-pyrite
bearing quartz impregnated fault zones in brecciated dacite. The structures are
continuous over distances in excess of 2,000 feet. Quartz and sulphide mineralization are restricted to situations at and near the intersections of two such faults.
Minor gold values are associated with the chalcopyrite.
Work commenced in May and continued to September. The work was done
by an average crew of eight men under the supervision of T. C. Osborne. Four
holes, totalling 1,150 feet, were diamond drilled. Outlying showings were investigated by surface trenching and packsack drilling.
The property was serviced by a Piper Supercub aircraft, which landed on a
previously prepared landing-strip. The property was not visited.
Bear Pass (56° 129° S.W.)*
Lead-Zinc
This property it at the head of a tributary of Surprise Creek,
Surprise Group east of Bear Pass, and consists of twenty claims held by
record. It has been reported that the showings consist of
pods of nearly massive mixed galena, sphalerite, and pyrrhotite in highly fractured
limestone at and near its contact with quartzite.
* By W. C. Robinson.
8 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
Work during 1960, which commenced in August and was completed in September, was done by Newmont Mining Corporation of Canada Limited. The
geology in the vicinity of the showings was mapped in detail and six packsack-drill
holes were put down to test the mineralization below the zone of oxidation.
Three men were employed, the crew being serviced by Piper Supercub aircraft
which landed on the glacier. The property was not visited.
Salmon River (56° 130° S.E.)*
Gold-Silver-Lead-Zinc
Company office, 844 West Hastings Street, Vancouver 1.
Silbak Premier A. E. Bryant, president; Hill, Starck and Associates, consult-
Mines Limited ing engineers. Under a lease from the company that terminated on September 23rd, 1960, Bermah Mines Ltd. (that is,
T. J. McQuillan and his two partners) and a crew of eight men mined and shipped
ore from a small high-grade shoot in a newly discovered vein lying on the footwall
side of the old Premier glory-hole.
The vein was found in 1959 by one of the partners who walked down through
the old glory-hole and found high-grade float which had sloughed from a vein
parallel to and 15 feet on the footwall side of the main vein that had been stoped in
the glory-hole. During the latter part of 1959, McQuillan and his partners snipped
62 tons of high-grade ore sorted from the slough in the bottom of the glory-hole.
This 62 tons of ore contained a total of 650 ounces of gold and 16,829 ounces of
silver.
In 1960 a short sublevel drift 30 feet long was driven along the new vein and
a raise put through to surface in ore. High-grade ore as a shoot about 35 feet
long, 4 feet wide, and 100 feet down dip was benched down through the raise and
drawn off through the sublevel.
On the termination of the lease on September 23rd, the company bought the
lessees' equipment and, with a crew of twelve men, continued to mine high-grade
ore until November 1st, 1960, when operations ceased.
Production during 1960 amounted to 1,282 tons of high-grade ore, 1,239 tons
being mined by Bermah Mines Ltd.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1947, pp. 74-82; 1956,
pp. 17, 18; Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 175, pp. 161-166.]
ALICE ARMf
Silver
(55° 129° N.W.) Company office, 355 Burrard Street, Van-
Wolfe (Dolly couver 1. W. Clarke Gibson, president; Hill, Starck and
Varden Mines Ltd.) Associates, consulting engineers. The property, which comprises four Crown-granted mineral claims, is held under option from the estate of the late Victor Spencer. The claims are on the east slope
and bottom of Kitsault Valley about one-quarter of a mile south of Trout Creek.
The property has been described in the 1951 Annual Report. During October,
1960, eight holes totalling 1,400 feet were diamond drilled to check the downward
extensions of the main vein.
Transportation was by helicopter, although the property can be reached by
following 17 miles of good motor-road up the Kitsault Valley from Alice Arm
to the old Torbrit mine and thence by 2 miles of tractor-road.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1916, pp. 52, 77; 1928,
pp. 85-86; 1951, pp. 97-98; Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 175, p. 87.]
* By Stuart S. Holland.
t By W. C. Robinson.
(Aerial oblique photo B.C. 510:44.)
Looking down Bear River valley to Stewart at the head of Portland Canal. Junction of
American Creek in foreground and of Bitter Creek in mid distance.
(Aerial oblique photo B.C. 510:42.)
Head of American Creek and north end of Bear River ridge. Salmon glacier in centre
distance. Adjoins photo above.
10 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
Molybdenum
(55° 129° S.E.) Head office, 25 King Street West, Toronto
Alice (Kennco 1. C. J. Sullivan, president; J. R. Woodcock, engineer in
Explorations charge of property. A total of sixty-eight claims are held—
(Western) Limited) fifty-five by record and thirteen by option. The property is
on Lime Creek about 5 miles southeast of Alice Arm. A circular stock, about one-half mile in diameter, intrudes greywacke of the Hazelton
group. It has a quartz stockwork and molybdenum mineralization throughout
a large part of the northern half of the stock.
Work on the property commenced May 15th and was suspended on October
15th. The average crew consisted of twenty-two men. Twenty holes totalling
12,486 feet were diamond drilled. Some bulldozer and hand trenching was done
and approximately 1 mile of road was constructed.
The camp was supplied by coastal boat to Alice Arm and thence by helicopter,
as well as by air drops from Beaver aircraft based at Prince Rupert.
(55° 129° S.E.) Fifty-eight recorded claims and two frac-
Roundy Creek tions, which extend up Roundy Creek from tidewater, were
held under option agreement by Southwest Potash Corporation until December 1st, 1960. On Roundy Creek, and about 1V4 miles from
tidewater, showings of molybdenite occur in quartz veins and as disseminated flakes
in granite, which intrudes folded hornfelsed rocks of the Hazelton group of Jurassic
age.
During 1960 exploratory investigations of these showings consisted of geological mapping and the diamond drilling of six holes totalling 2,500 feet. Twelve men,
under the supervision of R. W. Hodder, carried out the work from May to
September.
In conjunction with the exploration work on Roundy Creek, seven men, under
the direction of J. R. Loudon, were engaged in reconnaissance exploration of the
Alice Arm-Stewart area from May to September.
Transportation to Roundy Creek was by coastal boat and aircraft, while a helicopter was used extensively for the reconnaissance work.
OBSERVATORY INLET*
Copper
(55° 129° S.W.) G. A. Derry, development superintendent.
Double Ed (The This property of fifteen recorded claims is on Bonanza Creek,
Consolidated Min- 3 miles west of Anyox. During the early part of 1960, work
ing and Smelting continued on the crosscut adit, which was driven at about 500
Company of feet elevation to investigate further the surface showing of
Canada, Limited) copper mineralization, which is about 500 feet higher than the
adit. The adit, which was 1,898 feet long at the end of
1959, was driven an additional 976 feet in 1960, making it 2,874 feet long when
completed. Copper mineralization was encountered in the adit, and a total of
14,224 feet of diamond drilling was done underground.
The showing consists of several steeply dipping zones which are siliceous
pyrite replacements of sheared andesite flows. Disseminated chalcopyrite is also
present in these zones.
* By W. C. Robinson.
LODE METALS 11
An average crew of twenty men was employed. Coastal boats and float-
equipped aircraft were used for transportation to Bonanza Creek landing, and
trucks were used on the access road to the camp.
Work ceased in June, 1960, and all buildings and equipment were removed
from the property.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS*
Graham Island
Manganese
(54° 132° S.W.) This property is 25 miles west of Masset
Shag Rock on the east side of Klashwun Point near Shag Rock. It can
be reached by sea or air, but landing may present difficulties
in either case. The property is held by Joseph Pauloski, of Masset, by two claims
located in 1955. The claims extend northward along the east side of the point
from Indian Reservation No. 13, and extend 300 feet or more offshore.
Rock is exposed in the area only along the wide tidal zone, and the showings
are on the shore. Basaltic lavas of the Masset formation here strike north to
northeast and dip 15 to 20 degrees eastward. The lavas are cut by a north-trending
fault, on the east of which the lavas are underlain by dark-grey shale and buff
calcareous shale to sandstone of about 75 feet exposed thickness. The fault strikes
north 15 degrees east, subparallel to the shore, and dips about 80 degrees eastward.
It is filled with 5 to 15 feet of basalt breccia that is cemented by variable amounts
of manganite. Fragments in the breccia are angular and as much as 2 feet across,
although commonly the large fragments are only 6 to 8 inches across. Fragments
range downward in size from these dimensions to a few millimetres; still smaller
sizes were not seen. Veinlets of manganite also extend into the volcanic rocks of
the west wall of the fault. The mineralization is primary and is Tertiary in age. It
is probably related to the Masset volcanism.
The fault and the showings are exposed along the shore for about 550 feet
from the beach near the Indian reservation northward to where the shore trends
sharply to the west. The best showings appear to be in the northern third of the
exposure. Large hand specimens may be taken that contain as much as 50 per
cent manganese. At the northern end, where the breccia outcrops like a dyke, one
of the higher-grade lenses, about 8 feet high by 50 feet long by 5 feet wide is estimated to contain between 30 and 40 per cent manganese.
Moresby Island
Iron
(52° 131° S.E.) Company office, 808, 602 West Hastings
Harriet Harbour Street, Vancouver2. H. B.Gilleland,manager; A.C.Ritchie,
(Silver Standard general superintendent. Harriet Harbour is on Skincuttle
Mines Limited) Inlet, on the southeastern coast of Moresby Island, and is 70
miles south of Sandspit. The properties on Harriet Harbour
controlled by Silver Standard Mines Limited were reviewed fully in the 1959
Annual Report. The general geological setting is shown on the preliminary
geological map of the southern Queen Charlotte Islands issued by this Department
in March, 1960. The main orebody is east of the south end of Harriet Harbour on
the Jessie (Lot 1861) Crown-granted claim and the Limestone recorded claim.
Additional orebodies have been explored on the Adonis (Lot 1865) Crown-granted
claim east of the Jessie on the trail to Ikeda Cove, and on the Magnet (Lot 79) and
* By A. Sutherland Brown.
12 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
Dingo (Lot 87) Crown-granted claims southwest of the south end of Harriet
Harbour.
A total of ninety-five holes and 19,531 feet of EX core has been diamond
drilled since exploration was first started in June, 1959. After a short winter shutdown, drilling recommenced and continued until July, 1960. Of all the drilling
done, fifty-three holes totalling 16,364 feet have been drilled on the Jessie and Limestone claims, thirteen holes, totalling 1,081 feet on the Adonis, twenty-two holes
totalling 1,531 feet on the Magnet, and seven holes totalling 553 feet on the Dingo.
The camp was closed with a caretaker at the end of August, awaiting the arrangement of suitable financing. An agreement for sale of concentrates to the Sumitomo
Metal Mining Company of Japan had been completed in December, 1959.
The annual report of the company at June 1st, 1960, stated the ore reserves
consisted of 2,238,262 long tons of proven ore containing 51.8 per cent iron and
381,000 long tons of probable ore, mostly in the Jessie ore zone. The small amount
of drilling completed since June, 1960, has not altered these reserves.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Rept., 1959, pp. 11-14; Sutherland Brown, A. and Jeffery, W. G., Preliminary Geological Map of Southern Queen
Charlotte Islands, B.C. Dept. of Mines.]
ECSTALL RIVER*
Pyrite-Zinc-Copper
(53° 129° N.E.) Executive office, 75 East Forty-fifth Street,
Packsack New York. C. O. Stephens, New York, president; W. R.
(Texas Gulf Bacon, manager of British Columbia operations. This prop-
Sulphur Company) erty consists of sixteen claims, a double row of eight claims
extending northward from the big bend of the Ecstall River.
A description of the property was given in the 1958 Annual Report.
During the summer of 1960 eleven drill-holes, totalling 2,891 feet, were put
down to sample the mineralized zone that had been found by prospecting and
traced for a strike length of 2,000 feet beneath overburden by electromagnetic work.
All the holes are reported to have intersected pyrite mineralization, much of which
is massive.
No further work is planned for this property. The property, which was serviced by helicopter, was not visited.
SCOTIA RIVER*
Zinc
(54° 129° S.W.) Executive office, 75 East Forty-fifth Street,
Scotia New York. C. O. Stephens, New York, president; W. R.
(Texas Gulf Bacon, manager of British Columbia operations. This group
Sulphur Company) of four claims is about 10 miles south of Skeena River, on the
north bank of an easterly flowing tributary of Scotia River.
In 1958 investigation of a rusty hillside revealed the presence of a high-grade zinc
showing with minor amounts of lead and copper. The host rock is reported to be
a granitic gneiss containing pegmatitic material. The highly irregular showing is
on the west flank of an anticline that plunges southward at 30 degrees. In addition
to sphalerite, minor galena, and less chalcopyrite, there is a light general development of pyrite and pyrrhotite in the immediate vicinity.
In 1960 ten short drill-holes, totalling 1,865 feet, partially tested the showing
over a strike length of 250 feet.
Transportation was by helicopter. The property was not visited.
* By W. C. Robinson.
LODE METALS
13
KITIMAT*
Iron
Iron Mountain
(Quebec Metallurgical Industries
Ltd.)
(54° 128° S.W.) Company office, 602, 88 Metcalfe Street,
Ottawa. N. B. Davies, president; Alex. Smith, engineer in
charge. The property is on Iron Mountain, about 6 miles
north of Kitimat. It consists of four Crown-granted claims
and nine recorded claims. Work on the property commenced
in April and was suspended in December, 1960. Five to six
men were employed under the direction of H. S. Lazenby. Sixteen EX holes,
averaging about 400 feet long, and five packsack-drill holes, averaging 100 feet long,
were drilled. A magnetometer survey was also carried out on the property during
1960.
Near the Wedeene River crossing of the Kitimat branch of the Canadian
National Railway, a camp, consisting of office, cook-house, bunk-house, and dry,
was constructed. The camp was serviced by the railway, which passes through the
southern portion of the property.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1929, p. 72; 1959, p. 15.]
Molybdenum
CEDARVALE
Seven Sisters Mountain (54° 128° N.E.)*
Telkwa Prospector's Club
In 1958 a group, known as the Telkwa Prospector's Club,
located twenty claims on the northern slope of Seven Sisters
Mountain. Molybdenum mineralization occurs on this property in a showing exposed at the head of the valley of Whiskey
Creek and about 300 feet below an area covered by permanent snow. Flakes of
molybdenite occur in narrow quartz veinlets in diorite. Although molybdenite is
present in only some of the veinlets in a rather limited area, a further mineralized
zone under the snow is indicated by the presence of molybdenite-bearing float above
the showing.
Access to the property is by 8 miles of foot-trail from the Gull Creek crossing
of Highway No. 16.
HAZELTON*
Silver-Lead
Silver Standard (Silver Standard Mines Limited).—(55° 127° S.W.) Company office, 808, 602 West Hastings Street, Vancouver 2. R. W. Wilson, president.
The property is on Glen Mountain, 5Vi miles north of Hazelton. The mine was
leased by John Gallo, of Hazelton. Thirty-seven tons of silver-lead ore was shipped
to the Trail smelter during the early part of 1960.
SMITHERS*
Silver-Lead-Zinc
(54° 126° N.W.) Company office, 844 West Hastings Street,
Cronin (New Cronin Vancouver 1. L. C. Creery, president; Hill, Starck and As-
Babine Mines sociates, consulting mining engineers. The property is on the
Limited) east slope of Cronin Mountain, about 30 miles by road from
Smithers. P. Kindrat, lessee, again operated the mine and
mill during part of 1960. Seventy-nine tons of lead concentrate and 66 tons of zinc
concentrate were produced and snipped to the Trail smelter.
* By W. C. Robinson.
14 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
EUTSUK LAKE*
Molybdenum
(53° 127° S.E.) Phelps Dodge Corporation of Canada,
CAFB Limited, 904, 1030 West Georgia Street, Vancouver 5, holds
by record fifty-six mineral claims extending northward from
Haven (Bone) Lake toward the summit of Red Bird Mountain. Haven Lake is 8
miles west of Pondosy Bay on Eutsuk Lake. The claims cover a small stock of
granite porphyry which contains some molybdenite mineralization.
During June a tent camp was established near timberline on the south slope of
Red Bird Mountain, and a crew of four men under the direction of J. W. Bryant
did some surface trenching and ground sluicing.
The granite porphyry stock on the south side of Red Bird Mountain intrudes
a succession of tuffs and volcanic rocks of the Hazelton group. There has been
some silicification and pyritization of the granite together with some disseminated
molybdenite mineralization. The adjacent Hazelton formation is hornfelsed at and
near the contact and is partly silicified along zones of shearing which contain a small
amount of molybdenite.
Unmelted snow extending below timberline during June prevented effective
prospecting or stripping being done except in a few small areas of exposed ground.
Work was stopped and the camp abandoned early in July.
OMINECAf
Mercury
(55° 125° N.E.) This property is on Silver Creek, 9 miles
Snell Group south of Omineca River, and consists of thirty claims held by
record. It has been reported that diamond drilling had previously indicated two zones of mercury mineralization—one near the east bank of
Silver Creek, and another approximately 600 feet to the east. It has been reported
that in 1943 and 1944 two attempts were made by The Consolidated Mining and
Smelting Company of Canada, Limited, to drive a crosscut to intersect the eastern
zone. Both attempts encountered an old channel and the adits were abandoned.
In 1959 hydraulic stripping exposed a surface showing approximately 600 feet
northward from the westerly zone previously indicated by diamond drilling. This
surface showing consists of lenses of cinnabar mineralization in dolomitic limestone
along the Pinchi Lake fault zone. Cinnabar mineralization exists on either side of
a fault striking northward. The predominant rock type on the eastern side of the
fault is a tuff which contains no cinnabar in the areas exposed.
Work in 1960, which began on May 4th, included the replacement of four
bridges and a number of culverts west of Twin Creek on the access road from
Germansen Lake. On the property, further ground-sluicing was done in an attempt
to expose bedrock north of the showing. Bedrock had not been reached when
shortage of water forced a stoppage of work on August 1st.
Work on the property was done by four men under the supervision of E. Bron-
lund. The project was a joint effort by Bralorne Pioneer Mines Limited, Noranda
Exploration Company, Limited, and Canex Aerial Exploration Ltd. Transportation was by truck and aircraft.
Silver-Gold-Zinc
(55° 125° N.E.) This group of fifteen claims, held by option,
Lustdust is on Kwanika Creek, 20 miles south of Omineca River. The
showings, indicating a sulphide mass, are reported to contain
* By Stuart S. Holland,
t By W. C. Robinson.
LODE METALS 15
values in zinc, silver, and gold. Four men under the supervision of E. Bronlund
are reported to have drilled a number of short test-holes and done a considerable
amount of trenching by bulldozer. Work commenced on August 1st and ended for
the season on October 18th. The project was a joint effort by Bralorne Pioneer
Mines Limited, Noranda Exploration Company, Limited, and Canex Aerial Exploration Ltd. The property was not visited.
CARIBOO
„ ,, Wells-Barkerville (53° 121° S.W.)
Gold
Company office, 1007 Royal Bank Building, Vancouver; mine
Aurum, Mosquito office, Wells. Dr. W. B. Burnett, president; Marcel Guiguet,
Creek (The Cariboo general manager; J. J. Stone, mill superintendent. Capital:
Gold Quartz Mining 2,000,000 shares, $1 par value. Changes in the Cariboo
Company Limited)* Gold Quartz mine have been marked since the purchase of
the Island Mountain (Aurum) mine in August, 1954. Following the purchase, the Aurum mine has supplied most of the ore; the original mine
closed in September, 1959, and the Mosquito Creek property started production in
May, 1959. The Aurum, which was purchased for $300,000 and which was believed to have less than a year's reserves, has since produced over $4,000,000 in
bullion. The bulk of this has come from replacement ore, much of which has been
found adjacent to previously mined bodies by drilling test-holes with pneumatic
drills using flexible drill steel. Current production from the whole mine averages
3,460 tons of ore per month with an average gold content of 0.483 ounce per ton.
About 15 per cent of current production comes from the new ore zone, the Burnett
zone of the Mosquito Creek property. For the mine as a whole, 67 per cent of the
tonnage and 77 per cent of the gold now comes from replacement stopes.
One of the main reasons for the purchase of the Aurum mine was to provide
access to the Mosquito Creek property held by the company. Although no ore
was proven on this property, its potential was thought good because not only was
it on strike with the ore-bearing limestone beds, but " ore making " northerly faults
were known to cross it. Furthermore, Mosquito Creek has been a rich placer-gold
creek. A drive on the 3000 level was started in January, 1958. This encountered
a new fault, the Burnett fault, 2,300 feet northwest of the shaft. This fault strikes
north to north 16 degrees east and dips 67 to 80 degrees east, and hence is similar
to the main group of northerly striking normal faults of the Wells camp. Ore
dragged by the Burnett fault confirms that the post-ore movement has been normal.
Significant replacement orebodies are found on both sides of the fault, in Ml stope
northwest and 64 stope southeast of the fault. Ml stope has produced to August
31st, 1960, 4,864 tons of ore with an average gold content of 0.60 ounce per ton.
Ml has been mined up to the fault above the 3000 level. The 64 orebody has a
length of 280 feet on the down-dip side and a thickness of 4 to 8 feet. It was being
prepared for mining in September, 1960. In the summer of 1960, hydraulic mining
by J. J. Gunn in Mosquito Creek exposed replacement mineralization about 1,000
feet northwest of the Burnett fault, in what appear to be the same strata. To develop
the known orebodies and to explore for others, two drifts were started on the levels
immediately above and below the 3000 level. It is planned to drive the 3125 level
800 feet and the 2850 level 2,700 feet. To pay for this development, $200,000 in
first mortgage bonds has been issued. The drifting on the 3125 level was completed
in November. The 2850 drift was still being driven at the year-end and is expected
to reach the zone of projected replacement ore in April, 1961.
* By A. Sutherland Brown and A. R. C. James.
16
MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
The geological environment of the new ore zone is very much like that of the
best area of the Aurum mine. The Burnett fault cuts and repeats a large dragfold
that is similar in size to the Aurum mine dragfold (see Fig. 1). The folding is in
Figure 1. The Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company Limited. Isometric sketch
showing relation of Aurum dragfold and fault to Burnett dragfold and fault as outlined by
the " Rainbow-Baker " contact.
the same sense, involves the same beds, and is of the same attenuated and complexly
dragfolded type. Figure 1 shows diagrammatically the relation between the two
folds. The Aurum fold is encountered first on the 2625 level, where it plunges at
about 22 degrees to the northwest. It flattens and becomes smaller at the 3250
level and appears to die out just below the 3125 level. On the 3000 level it is absent,
but 800 feet northwest of the projected position of the Aurum fold the new fold
appears. This is repeated in the same manner as the Aurum fold is repeated by
the Aurum fault. The Aurum fold was a particularly favourable locus of replacement deposits, especially close to the fault and in the anticline. The size and grade
of the Ml and the 64 orebodies indicate that the same may be true of the newly
discovered Burnett fold and fault.
LODE METALS 17
The following is a summary of development work done at the mine in 1960:—■
Drifting and crosscutting— Feet
Current development 2,188
Capital development 1,929
Total 4,117
Raising 819
Diamond drilling 15,452
Ribbon steel test-holes 9,488
In addition to the development work being done in the Burnett fault zone, small
orebodies or extensions of existing orebodies continue to be found in the older section of the mine. The mine is developed from a main haulage adit at the 4000 level.
Eleven levels have been developed from the Aurum shaft, which is a three-compartment internal shaft 1,450 feet deep and collared at the 4000 level. The working
stopes are all between the 3250 and 2700 levels.
At the end of the year a crew of 116 men was employed, of which seventy-two
were underground. The accident rate at the mine shows a striking improvement on
past years. There was only one lost-time accident in 1960, giving an accident rate
of 4.1 accidents per million man-hours worked, the lowest of any mine in the
Province. This compares very favourably indeed with the rate of 32.6 for 1959,
and 64.2 for the average of the last five years. A full-time safety director is employed and regular safety meetings and inspections are carried out.
A total of 39,113 tons of ore was milled, yielding 19,555 ounces of gold. This
is approximately a 10-per-cent increase in gold production over 1959 and a 16-percent decrease in the amount of ore milled.
[Reference: B.C. Dept. of Mines, Bull. No. 38, Geology of the Antler Creek
area, pp. 74-79, 82-85.]
Silver
Nine recorded mineral claims and fractions extending north-
Scarn* eastward up Copper Creek from the twin bridges on the
Cariboo-Hudson road make up the Scarn group held by
Daniel Jorgenson, of Barkerville. The claims are reached by 16 miles of road east
from Barkerville. In an area north of the north branch of Copper Creek, the claims
cover mineralized quartz veins containing silver values and some scheelite as well
as other scheelite showings along the south branch of Copper Creek previously
described in British Columbia Department of Mines Bulletin No. 34, pages 77
and 78.
This report covers only those veins lying north of the north branch of Copper
Creek.
Over the past ten years Dan Jorgenson has done a very large amount of prospecting and hand-trenching on the Scarn group. The surface work has been
extremely thorough and the vein characteristics are well displayed. In a drift-
covered area underlain by black argillite, siltstone, and thin limestone beds belonging to the Midas formation along and east of the Copper Creek fault, he has found
and trenched at least six quartz veins. The veins strike 20 to 40 degrees west of
north, dip steeply, and cut across the more northwesterly striking formations.
Vein quartz is mineralized with silver-bearing tetrahedrite, galena, and small
amounts of pyrite and sphalerite. In some instances scheelite is present. The
mineralization is for the most part across widths of 3 to 8 inches in veins that are
* By Stuart S. Holland.
18
MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
3 feet or more wide and in which the balance of the quartz is essentially devoid of
mineralization. As a consequence, only narrow widths of well-mineralized quartz
were sampled (see table of assays). One of the quartz veins cuts a bed of limestone, and in several open cuts along it scheelite is present in the adjacent limestone
as well as in the vein.
Fifteen samples were taken from five veins. The widths and assay results are
shown in the accompanying tabulation and the sample locations are shown on the
accompanying plan, Figure 2.
©-■<
i
,i—©
©—-V
©—«, V0'
LEGEND
|~" | Vein
I *»«| Limestone
© Sample number
^O^rJ
©—H
ft—®
M >
®—7> i
®—f/ }
Figure 2. Scarn group. Plan showing veins and sample locations.
In the quartz veins, high silver values are present only where the quartz is
well mineralized with tetrahedrite; the gold content is generally very low, and the
tungsten content is erratic and controlled in part by the near presence of limestone.
LODE METALS
Assays of Samples from the Scarn Group
19
No.
Width
of Vein
Width
Sampled
Gold
Silver
Copper
Tungstic
Oxide
1
2
10'
3'
3'
8'
18"
7'
T
3'
8'
8'
2'
7'
18"-2'
6'
3V4'
f Selected
| from 6"
10"
3'
2'
18"
12"
2'
12"
48"
6-8"
2'
2'
4-6"
3"
3W
Oz. per Ton
) 0.03
0.01
Trace
Nil
Trace
Trace
Trace
Trace
0.01
Nil
Trace
0.02
Nil
0.025
0.01
Oz. per Ton
114.2
88.6
14.5
Trace
0.3
0.1
12.8
0.4
9.3
3.9
2.9
7.7
9.1
27.8
2.9
Per Cent
4.16
2.15
0.42
0.01
0.04
0.37
0.51
0.17
0.23
0.68
0.46
1.83
0.26
Per Cent
Nil
3 _ ..
0.04
4
0.25
5
0 21
6
0.061
7..
8
0.08
0.34
9
in
0.05
0.111
n
0.59
12
13
14
0.19
0.01
0.05
15 „
1 Silicified limestone.
Gold
Yanks Peak (52° 121° N.E.)*
The Jim group consists of eight claims and fractions held by
Jim F. H. M. Codville, of Duncan. The property is near Yanks
Peak and is 12 miles by road from Keithley Creek ranch.
The upper part of the road is best travelled by four-wheel-drive vehicle. The showings comprise quartz veins and lenses containing gold values that outcrop at elevations of from 5,720 to 5,780 feet on the Ridge No. 4 and Jim claims. The showings
have been explored underground from an adit at 5,638 feet elevation by about 1,200
feet of drifts and crosscuts.
Work done in 1960 consisted of four diamond-drill holes totalling 500 feet.
These holes were drilled in the adit. A crew of from two to three men was
employed from June 30th until August 17th.
[Reference: B.C. Dept. of Mines, Bull. No. 34, 1954, pp. 65-68.]
Copper
CLINTON*
Poison Mountain (51° 122° S.W.)
Copper Nos. 1 to 4
(New Jersey Zinc
Exploration Corn-
Vancouver office, 905, 525 Seymour Street, Vancouver 2.
This property comprises four recorded claims (Copper Nos.
1 to 4) optioned from H. Reynolds, of Lillooet, and sixteen
recorded claims held by the present company. The claims
pany (Canada) Ltd.) are mainly on the west side of Poison Mountain, about 40
miles northwest of Lillooet near the headwaters of Yalakom
River and Churn Creek. The property may be reached by 36 miles of jeep-road
from Big Bar ferry on the Fraser River, but the easiest approach now is from Lillooet
via the Yalakom River road as far as Blue Creek. From here a 12Vi-mile jeep-
road has been made to the camp on Poison Mountain Creek at 5,400 feet elevation.
The principal showings are east of Poison Mountain Creek and on the lower westerly slope of Poison Mountain from 5,600 to 6,000 feet elevation. The claims are
underlain by sandstones, argillites, and greywacke. These sediments are intruded
by diorite porphyry. Recent work indicates complex structure with many flat-lying
* By A. R. C. James.
4
20 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
faults and complex alteration. The mineralization, comprising disseminations and
fracture fillings (mainly chalcopyrite and pyrite), is associated with the alteration
of both sediments and porphyry.
The showings were apparently first discovered in 1935. A number of pits and
trenches were dug between 1935 and 1946 on the exposures on the Copper No. 1
claim north of Copper Creek, a small creek flowing west into Poison Mountain
Creek. In 1956 The Granby Consolidated Mining Smelting and Power Company
Limited optioned the Copper group of claims and recorded additional ones in the
area. This company did a considerable amount of stripping, and diamond drilled
ten holes totalling 1,973 feet. All this work was done on what was then thought to
be the most favourable zone of mineralization adjacent to and north of Copper
Creek. The average assay of a large number of samples taken near the western end
of this zone was 0.60 per cent. The Granby company subsequently dropped their
option. In 1959 the present company optioned the property and carried out a comprehensive magnetometer and soil-sample survey.
In 1960 a 12^-mile jeep-road was constructed from the Yalakom River road
at Blue Creek to the camp at Poison Mountain. A number of bulldozer trenches
and access roads were made on the claims (the overburden cover averages about
15 feet) to investigate anomalies indicated by the 1959 surveys. Fifteen vertical
holes were diamond drilled, totalling 2,000 feet. The work indicated fairly widespread areas of mineralization, but copper values were generally low, and the option
was terminated at the end of the season. A crew of eight men was employed under
the supervision of E. Livingstone.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1946, pp. 101-102; 1956,
pp. 35-37.]
Porcupine Mountain (51° 122° S.E.)
Gold
Company office, Box 100, Chilliwack. G. H. Clarke, presi-
Porcupine Mountain dent. This company holds by record ten mineral claims and
(Empire Valley three fractions on Porcupine Mountain between the Fraser
Gold Mines Ltd.) River and Churn Creek. The property, which is at an elevation of from 6,500 to 7,300 feet, is reached by 29 miles of
road from the Fraser River bridge near the Gang Ranch. The principal showings
consist of a number of gold-bearing quartz veins in dark-green volcanic rocks.
Intermittent work has been done on the showings since they were discovered in 1947.
Approximately two weeks' work was done in September and October, 1960,
by a crew ranging from four to eight men (all directors of the company) under the
supervision of Earl Brett. It is reported that 2,500 feet of road was built in order
to facilitate drilling on the lower levels of the Ogden and Turret claims. The road
to the Sugar Bowl fraction was cleared. Repairs were made to the roofs of camp
buildings.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1948, pp. 92-95; 1954,
pp. 98-100.]
LILLOOET*
Gold
Bridge River (50° 122° N.W.)
The Ace Mining Company Ltd., 404, 510 West Hastings
Acet Street, Vancouver 2, holds forty-nine recorded mineral claims,
ten mineral leases, and forty-four Crown-granted mineral
* By A. R. C. James, except as noted.
t By Stuart S. Holland.
.
LODE METALS 21
claims covering a considerable area lying for the most part north of the Bridge River
and extending for 4 miles west of the junction of Gun Creek. It includes the Wayside, Congress, and Minto mines.
In the autumn of 1959 a new vein was exposed to view about 3,000 feet west
of the Congress mine in a rock cut on the new Bridge River road. In December an
agreement with Bralorne Pioneer Mines Limited was reached whereby the latter
company is to provide funds for exploration work. In the first half of 1960 the
showing was traced uphill to the north by a number of irregularly spaced trenches.
Surface diamond drilling confirmed the presence of the vein structure down dip to
a depth of several hundred feet. In June a drift was started below the Bridge River
highway, to explore the shear at depth. The work was done under the direction of
J. P. Weeks, chief geologist at Bralorne mine.
The showing, as exposed in the original road cut, is a strongly oxidized mineralized shear striking north and dipping about 55 degrees west. The shear is
occupied by quartz mineralized with stibnite, arsenopyrite, and pyrite. A sample
taken across 20 inches of strongly sheared and oxidized material assayed: Gold,
0.73 oz. per ton.
Trenching uphill to the north of the road cut picked up the shear along strike
for about 500 feet and with exposed widths of as much as 9 feet. Assays of surface
samples were sufficiently encouraging for the company to institute surface diamond
drilling which confirmed the extension of the vein shear and associated gold values
to a depth of at least 200 feet.
By mid-September the drift on the vein shear had been driven a distance of 277
feet. In the drift the shear is seen to have a variable width and to reach a maximum
of 5 feet. The shear is not continuously mineralized, but is occupied by several discontinuous lenses of quartz mineralized with stibnite and arsenopyrite. From one
a sample taken across 26 inches assayed: Gold, 0.32 oz. per ton. Drifting terminated for the winter on October 31st, at which time the drift was 507 feet long.
A small amount of stripping was done elsewhere on the property in conjunction
with the geological mapping done by W. Chinn, of Bralorne mine.
Eight diamond-drill holes totalling 4,848 feet were drilled. Two of these holes,
totalling 3,050 feet, were drilled in the Congress mine, and the remaining six in the
vicinity of the Discovery vein.
At the end of the season a representative sample of ore from the Congress mine
was taken for a metallurgical investigation to be carried out during the winter.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Rept, 1948, pp. 106-112;
Cairnes, C. E., Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 213, 1937, pp. 102-104.]
Company office, 355 Burrard Street, Vancouver 1; mine
Bralorne Pioneer office, Bralorne. F. R. Joubin, president; J. E. McMynn,
Mines Limited general manager; C. M. Campbell, Jr., resident manager;
J. S. Thomson, superintendent of mines; C. D. Musser,
superintendent of mills. At the end of 1960 this company was operating only the
Bralorne mine. The Pioneer mine was closed down in August as a result of the
mining out of existing reserves in the 27 vein. The results of development on No. 30
level on this vein proved disappointing, and other exploration failed to indicate
new sources of ore. The Pioneer mine was first located in 1897 and has been in
continuous production since 1924. In the early thirties it was the leading gold mine
in the Province, and in 1933 a total of 82,519 ounces of gold was produced, valued
at $2,400,000. By 1944 the Main vein was mined out, but the mine gained a new
lease on life when the 27 vein was discovered. In the ensuing years, production
22 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
again rose to a maximum of 56,198 ounces in 1957. During the whole lifetime of
Pioneer mine a total of nearly 21/i millions tons of ore has been mined, yielding
approximately 1,330,000 ounces of gold. The average grade of the ore throughout
the working life of the mine was 0.54 ounce of gold per ton. In 1960, 50,163 tons
of ore was milled.
Bralorne Mine.—The Bralorne mine is on Cadwallader Creek, a tributary of
the Bridge River. It is reached by 51 miles of road from Shalalth or 75 miles from
Lillooet, both stations on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway. The property was
described in some detail in the 1958 Annual Report. The extensive workings are in
a generally northwesterly trending vein system which is now being mined at depths
of between 3,200 and 4,100 feet below the surface, with development work proceeding up to a depth of 5,000 feet below the surface.
The workings are approached by a main haulage adit on No. 8 level. There
are three internal shafts: the Crown shaft, approximately 2,600 feet deep, from No.
8 to No. 26 level; the Empire shaft, approximately 3,280 feet deep from No. 3 to
No. 26 level; the Queen shaft, 2,000 feet deep from No. 26 to a point just below
No. 39 level. The major portion of present production is mined in cut-and-fill stopes
between No. 26 and No. 33 levels, the 77 vein being the principal producing vein.
The ore is hoisted in the Queen shaft to No. 26 level and is then hauled by battery
locomotive to the Crown shaft, hoisted to No. 8 level, the main haulage level of the
mine, and hauled by trolley locomotive to the mill. In the mill the ore is treated by
amalgamation, blanket concentration, and flotation. A sulphide concentrate made
by flotation is shipped to the Tacoma smelter. During the latter half of the year,
work was in progress on the erection of an entirely new 600-ton cyanide mill to
replace the old mill and to provide greater efficiency and improved recovery. It is
planned to have the new mill in operation in May, 1961. In 1960, 153,482 tons
of ore was milled.
Development work comprised 1,893 feet of drifting, 444 feet of crosscutting,
1,038 feet of raising, and 19,343 feet of diamond drilling. The Queen shaft was
sunk from a point 91 feet below No. 37 level to a point 24 feet below No. 39 level
station, a distance of 224 feet. A station has been cut at No. 38 level, and a crosscut driven toward the 77 vein; at the end of the year this crosscut was within 250
feet of the vein. Exploratory drifting and diamond drilling was also done on the
51b vein at No. 4 level, and rehabilitation of the Taylor Bridge River crosscut on
No. 20 level was carried out with a view to investigating the possibilities of downward extensions of the King structures below No. 14 level.
A sand-fill plant was designed and installed during the year, to use mill-tailings
for the hydraulic filling of stopes in place of the present waste fill. The sand and
water mixture is pumped from surface to a central reservoir on No. 8 level. From
there it is passed downward to the lower workings through a 2% -inch diamond-drill
hole. The plant is to go into operation in January, 1961, and all new stopes from
this date will be sand-filled. Existing stopes will continue to be waste-filled until
completion.
The ventilation raise, started in the summer of 1957, was completed by the
middle of 1960. This raise, which is 12 feet in diameter and extends from the
surface at the old Blackbird portal (No. 4 level) down to No. 25 level, a vertical
distance of 3,000 feet, provides an entirely new intake air-shaft and permits cool air
from the surface to be supplied direct to the mine workings. A radial fan on the
surface at the collar of the raise draws 80,000 cubic feet of air per minute into the
mine. Provision is made at the fan housing for installing a second fan in parallel,
which could increase the air flow to 120,000 cubic feet per minute. The exhaust
air now passes out of the workings via the Crown and Empire shafts and No. 8 and
~
LODE METALS 23
No. 3 level adits. A comparison of temperature readings taken in various parts of
the Queen shaft area in October, 1957, and October, 1960, shows a 5-per-cent drop
in dry bulb temperature (from 83.5 to 78.9 degrees) despite the fact that the
present workings are deeper. Average relative humidity in the mine was reduced
8 per cent (88 to 81 per cent) over the same period. Average temperature at
Queen shaft stations was down 11 per cent from 83.5 degrees in 1957 to 72.3
degrees in 1960.
The number of men employed was 384, of whom 274 were employed underground. Although the year was marred by one fatal accident, it is pleasing to be
able to report a marked improvement in the accident rate over last year. The fatal
accident occurred in the Queen shaft sinking operations on August 18th. Harold
Jessome, an employee of Patrick Harrison and Company, engaged in contract
sinking of the Queen shaft, was killed as a result of a Cryderman mucking-machine
breaking loose and falling down the shaft. A more detailed description of this
accident will be found elsewhere in this Report. Of the non-fatal accidents, a total
of twelve compensable accidents was reported during the year. This is a rate per
million man-hours of 15.1, which may be regarded as very satisfactory. The accident rate for all lost-time accidents also showed a remarkable improvement. For
1960 this was 19.0 accidents per million man-hours, as compared with 37.3 accidents per million man-hours in 1959, a drop of 49 per cent. When compared with
the average lost-time accident rate over the past five years of 47.9, the improvement
is even more notable. An active safety organization at this property receives the
full backing of management, and regular safety meetings and inspections are held.
Company office, 404, 510 West Hastings Street, Vancouver 1.
Bridge River United Raymond R. Taylor, president. Capital: 4,500,000 shares,
Mines Ltd. no par value. This company controls twenty-one Crown-
granted claims and fractions on the lower reaches of Hurley
River, extending for a distance of 2 miles up the river from a point Wi miles above
Gold Bridge. The property includes the Ural, Forty Thieves, and Why Not claims,
which were first located in 1896 and 1897. Intermittent exploration work, both
surface and underground, has been done for many years on these claims, which lie
on the east side of the deep and rugged canyon of the Hurley River. The claims are
underlain mainly by andesite of the Pioneer formation and diorite of the Bralorne
intrusions, bounded on the west by an outcrop of serpentinized pyroxenite. Quartz-
filled fractures occur in the andesites and diorites, some of which have been traced
for over 900 feet. These veins in places contain gold values, but the vein matter
has hitherto not generally been found to be of ore grade. A number of adits have
been driven at various points at the foot of the canyon bluffs to explore the Forty
Thieves, Why Not, Jewess, and other veins which outcrop either close to or on the
canyon bluffs. Until the present company began work in 1959, the property had
been dormant since 1946.
In 1960, work on the property was begun on May 15th and continued until the
end of the year. The first work done was to widen and improve the road along the
bottom of the Hurley River canyon, which extends about \lA miles to the foot of
the Why Not bluffs. In September a contract was signed with Rayrock Mines
Limited for this company to participate in the exploration of the property. By the
end of the year 2,300 feet of diamond drilling had been done, mainly on the Why
Not vein structure, and detailed geological mapping of the Why Not tunnel was
completed. The Ural No. 3 tunnel (giving access to underground workings on the
Forty Thieves vein) was reopened for inspection and geological mapping in December, after a large amount of rock had been bulldozed away from above the caved
24 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
adit. A crew of from three to ten men was employed under the supervision of
R. R. Taylor. The work was under the general direction of W. E. Clarke, of Ray-
rock Mines Limited.
[References: Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Rept., 1946, pp. 106-112;
Cairnes, C. E., Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 213, 1937, pp. 88-91.]
Company office, Box 305, Lillooet. President, Paul Polis-
Hurley River chuk, Bralorne. Capital: 3,000,000 shares, $1 par value.
Mines, Ltd. This company controls several properties in the Bridge River
area and one near the head of Lillooet Lake. The largest
property is a group of fifty-six claims in the general area northwest of Hurley River
about IVi miles west of Bralorne. The claims extend on either side of Gwyneth
Lake and for \3A miles southwest of the lake. The property is approached by a
road from Bralorne by way of the Alma prospect and the Hurley dam-site. The
claims are largely underlain by argillaceous, limy, and volcanic rocks of the Hurley
formation, with some granitic intrusives immediately to the east of Gwyneth Lake.
Interest in 1960 has been centred on the contract of an easterly striking felsite dyke
with the aforementioned rocks on the Gary claim 2,300 feet south-southeast of
Gwyneth Lake. Approximately 200 feet of packsack diamond drilling was done
here in the spring by Paul Polischuk, and it was reported that significant gold values
were obtained in some of the holes. Rayrock Mines Limited optioned the property
in June and diamond drilled six holes totalling 1,800 feet in the same area drilled
by Paul Polischuk. A crew of five men was employed under the supervision of
B. Nekrasov. The option was subsequently dropped.
The company also holds a group of claims, known as the Spruce group, in the
upper part of Truax Creek. Some diamond drilling and surface stripping was done
on these claims, and a crew of four men was employed under the supervision of
Paul Polischuk.
Fraser River (50° 121° N.W.)
Copper
Company office, 510 West Hastings Street, Vancouver 1.
Askom (Tombac Isaac Shulman, president. Capital: 5,000,000 shares, no
Exploration Ltd.) par value. In January this company optioned a group of
twenty-four recorded claims, known as the Askom group,
from A. Jenner and John Rickard, of Lillooet. The property is on the west side of
the Fraser River in the vicinity of Nesikep Creek, about 15 miles southeast of
Lillooet. It is reported that there are four or five outcrops with indications of copper mineralization over a distance of approximately a mile. Work was done on
the property over a three-month period in the early part of the year with a total
of four men employed under the supervision of J. Sullivan. A number of trenches
were dug and sampling was done in the mineralized zones. The assay results from
the sampling is reported by the company to have averaged a low percentage of
copper, and the option was subsequently dropped.
Gold
ANDERSON LAKE*
(50° 122° N.E.) Company office, 928 West Pender Street,
Golden Contact Vancouver 1. John A. McKelvie, president and manager.
(Cassiar Copper- Capital: 5,000,000 shares, $1 par value. This company
fields Limited) holds under option agreement the Golden Contact property,
on the north slope of McGillivray Creek about 5 miles by
* By A. R. C. James.
LODE METALS 25
jeep-road from Ponderosa Ranch on the Pacific Great Eastern Railway. The main
showings are quartz veins, locally mineralized and containing gold values, within
a schistose host rock. The showings were discovered in 1898, and a considerable
amount of underground exploration has been carried out over three separate
periods—1900-1903, 1932-1938, and 1947-1953. There are six adit levels from
the No. 1 at 3,615 feet elevation to the Pep adit at 2,938 feet elevation. The underground workings were inaccessible when the present company took over.
The present company began work in May, 1960. The camp at the 3,000-
foot level was rehabilitated. While attempting to open the Fortyniner adit on
June 1st, two of the crew were trapped by a cave-in. This involved a major rescue
operation, which is described elsewhere in this Report. The men were released
safely after thirty hours. After this incident it was decided to bulldoze the unconsolidated and weathered material away from the portals of both the Fortyniner and
the Pep adits. Over 8,000 yards of material was moved from the two portals before
solid rock was reached. The new portal at the Fortyniner adit was finally set up on
October 29th and access was gained to the old tunnel. The Pep adit was opened
in July, but caving conditions in the tunnel made progress very slow. In one section a diversion tunnel 110 feet long had to be driven. By the end of the year,
access had been gained on this level to the underground workings. The object of
this work is to prepare the property for a detailed geological examination and for
sampling. The future programme will depend on the results of these findings.
A crew of six men was employed from July to December under the supervision of John McKelvie.
HIGHLAND VALLEY*
Copper
(50° 120° N.W.) Company office, 809, 837 West Hastings
Trojan Consolidated Street, Vancouver 1. G. L. Conn, president. This company
Mines Ltd. holds about eighty claims and fractions north and east of the
south peak of Forge Mountain. For most of 1960 the property continued under option to Rio Tinto Canadian Exploration Limited, which did
geophysical and geochemical surveying. A surface diamond-drill hole 341 feet long
was drilled about 2,000 feet southeasterly from the Highland shaft. An average
crew of six men was employed from May to October under the supervision of L. B.
Gatenby and N. G. Mattocks.
(50° 121° N.E.) Company office, 1004, 850 West Hastings
Krain Copper Ltd. Street, Vancouver 1. D. F. Farris, president. This company
holds about eighty claims and fractions which adjoin the north
boundary of the Trojan property. In 1960 a part of the property was optioned for
a time by Rio Tinto Canadian Exploration Limited, which did geophysical work and
drilled one hole 530 feet long on the D.W. group. This hole was in volcanic rocks
for its total length.
(50° 120° N.W.) This group lies southwest of the Lodge
Beaver group and is held jointly by Farwest Minerals Limited (com
pany office, 1075 Melville Street, Vancouver) and Beaver
Lodge Uranium Mines Limited, of the same address. In 1960 ten claims in the
north part of the group were optioned for a time by Rio Tinto Canadian Exploration
Limited, which did geophysical surveying.
* By J. M. Carr.
I
26 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
(50° 120° N.W.) This group of about forty-seven claims
Lodge and fractions lies between the Trojan and Bethlehem prop
erties and is held by Northlodge Copper Mines Limited
(company office, 1075 Melville Street, Vancouver).
In 1960 the group was optioned for a time by Rio Tinto Canadian Exploration
Limited, which did geophysical and geochemical surveying and drilled one hole 565
feet in length.
(50° 120° S.W.) Company office, 814, 402 West Pender
Bethlehem Copper Street, Vancouver 3. H. H. Huestis, president; C. J.
Corporation Ltd. Coveney, chief geologist. This company holds about 158
claims and fractions immediately east of Quiltanton (Divide)
Lake, about 30 miles by road southeast of Ashcroft. In 1960 work was mainly done
in the vicinity of the East Jersey mineralized zone, on behalf of Sumitomo Metal
Mining Company of Tokyo. It included two raises, each about 100 feet in length,
from which percussion drilling was done. About 12,000 feet of surface diamond
drilling was done, together with some trenching. In addition, three churn-drill holes,
each about 300 feet deep, were drilled for water near Witches Brook, of which two
were productive. Detailed topographic surveys were made of prospective open-pit
and plant sites. Five men were employed, together with a mining crew provided by
Intermountain Construction Ltd.
(50° 120° S.W.) Company office, 104, 569 Howe Street,
Jericho Mines Vancouver 1. Hamlin B. Hatch, president. This company
Limited holds about eighty claims south of Witches Brook, about 7
miles east of Quiltanton (Divide) Lake. In 1959 the company built a road from about 1 mile west of the camp on Witches Brook to a showing where trenching was then done. This showing is 1 mile northwest of a lake
which is known locally as Billy Lake and which lies 1 mile northwest of the Billy
Lake shown on published maps.
Work done in 1960 included diamond drilling which was partly at this showing
and partly at a locality near the road about 2 miles north of Billy Lake. A geophysical survey was also made.
MERRITT*
Geology of the Promontory Hills
Introduction
This account is designed to accompany a geological map of an area of about
24 square miles, extending south and west from the Craigmont mine (Fig. 3). The
northern boundary of the area lies partly north of Birkett Creek, on which the mine
is situated, and partly south of David Creek. The western boundary is on Indian
Reserve No. 9, due north of Canford, and the southern and eastern boundaries are
along the valleys of Nicola River and both Stumbles (Ten Mile) and Guichon
Creeks, which join the Nicola River near Lower Nicola. The country is only
moderately rugged and in part has a pronounced east-northeasterly grain. It is
dominated by a dissected ridge whose highest feature is Lookout Point (5,688
feet). North of the ridge, the terrain is typical of the Interior Plateau and is more
diversified, with rather bare or park-like south-facing slopes which descend interruptedly to the main valleys, which are at about 2,000 feet elevation. One or two
benches and high-level valleys afford rough pasturage or farm land, and in recent
* By J. M. Carr, except as noted.
KINGSVALE GROUP
LEGEND
COYLE STOCK
GEOLOGY OF
PROMONTORY HILLS AREA
50° 10'
CANFORO
LODE METALS 27
years there has been considerable logging of Douglas fir and red pine in this part
of the area. The climate is semi-arid and no permanent streams occur in the area.
Several creeks flow radially from the ridge and are partly linear in course. Access
to the area is mainly by an all-weather road to Lookout Point that is 8 miles long
and leaves the Merritt-Spences Bridge highway about 7 miles west of Merritt. This
road serves the forest lookout and the microwave station at Lookout Point and
connects with logging-roads of lesser quality which give wide access to the rest of
the area. It also connects with a recently completed jeep-road from Craigmont
mine, at a point about 1 mile south of the lookout. Principal access to the mine is
by a road leaving the highway at Lower Nicola, which is 6 miles to the west of
Merritt and near the Canadian Pacific Railway branch line at Coyle. Natural-gas
and oil pipe-lines pass through Lower Nicola and Merritt, respectively.
The Craigmont orebody is on the eastern slope of Promontory Hills, about
2V2 miles east-northeast of Lookout Point. It is a massive deposit of chalcopyrite,
magnetite, and specular hematite, and occurs in skarns of the Nicola group close
to the margin of the Guichon batholith. After the orebody was discovered in 1957,
this and adjacent areas have been heavily prospected by a variety of means, including magnetic, electrical, geological, and soil-sampling surveys. Large parts of the
area remain covered by mineral claims in good standing, and prospecting still continues. Despite all this work, which is some cases included trenching and diamond
drilling, no other mineral occurrences of significance have yet been found. Much
of the area either is underlain by rocks of post-mineral age or is obscured by superficial deposits, and probably less than 3 per cent of it is occupied by Nicola outcrops.
The present mapping made use of existing geological information and was done
in 1959 and 1960. A preliminary geological map was made by R. Lee, using vertical air photos obtained from Hunting Survey Corporation and transferring the field
information to a provisional base map on a scale of 1 inch to 1,000 feet. Following
limited additional work in 1960, the final map was compiled on a topographical
base map of the same scale, made available by Canadian Exploration Limited and
associated companies. A summary of the geological features recognized during
preliminary mapping has already been published, together with a general account
of the Craigmont orebody, in the 1959 Annual Report. The present account makes
no attempt to describe in detail the geology and structure of the Craigmont mine,
which are still being investigated.
[References: Geol. Surv., Canada, Mem. 249, Nicola Map-area, 1948; Minister of Mines, B.C., Ann. Repts., 1957, p. 28; 1958, pp. 24-27; 1959, pp. 31-34.]
Nicola Group
Strata of the Nicola group, of Upper Triassic age, directly underlie about half
the mapped area and contain the Craigmont orebody. They are intruded by the
Guichon batholith and by a stock northwest of Lower Nicola, as well as by numerous smaller igneous bodies which are variously of basalt, andesite, and quartz porphyry, or quartz-porphyry breccia. The Nicola rocks are chiefly tuffs, tuffaceous
sediments, and limestone together with impure limy beds. Except to the southwest,
they generally possess steep dips. The stratigraphy is still uncertain, largely because
no reliable marker beds have been recognized and the fossil content of these and
other Nicola rocks has so far been insufficiently studied. Lithological mapping has
distinguished two kinds of assemblage, characterized by feldspathic and limy rocks,
respectively, which occupy a number of more or less extensive belts. These belts
strike northeastward across the main part of Figure 3, and are separated by belts
28 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
in which the rock types have not been differentiated. Correlation of any of the
belts with rocks farther east at the Craigmont mine is not yet possible.
Feldspathic Rocks.—Feldspathic rocks comprise the whole of a persistent belt
some 2,500 feet wide and occur less exclusively in two more southerly belts. They
are mainly tuffs, with some tuff breccia and volcanic conglomerate, and are characterized by a prevalent purple-red colour as well as abundant white feldspar crystals,
which accompany volcanic rock fragments in a dense matrix. Although commonly
reddish, the colour of the rocks may show gradations to pale green or white. These
differences may be due partly to reduction of iron oxides and to dissemination of
epidote by hydrothermal alteration. Rare beds of white quartz tuff and tuff breccia,
as much as 100 feet wide, could be traced for no more than a few hundred feet.
The rocks are mostly massive or thick bedded, and commonly exhibit a poor to
moderate bedding foliation. Thin beds of fine red tuff occur and are generally
regular and undeformed. Graded bedding and related sedimentary structures have
not been observed.
The feldspathic rocks contain varying proportions of detrital volcanic rock
fragments, crystals, and matrix. The rock fragments are of red, brown, green, grey,
or black aphanitic material, which is only feebly porphyritic or vesicular. They
occur in amounts ranging from as much as 25 per cent in volcanic conglomerates
and pebble beds, through intermediate amounts in tuff breccias, to about 10 per
cent in medium-grained tuffs. Rounding of the fragments increases with then-
size—the tuffs and tuff breccias commonly contain unmodified, irregular, or angular
fragments which seldom exceed one-quarter inch, whereas the conglomerates have
abundant, well-rounded or ovoid fragments as much as 6 inches in size. Southeast
of Lookout Point, some beds resembling agglomerate contain unstratified, subangu-
lar blocks of volcanic rock as much as 1 foot across.
The crystal detritus, which comprises as much as 25 per cent of most rocks,
consists chiefly of whole or broken laths of plagioclase feldspar as large as 2 millimetres, which are in places accompanied by a few quartz grains of similar size.
Like the volcanic rock fragments, the crystal debris is distributed haphazardly in
the matrix, without perceptible sorting. The matrix itself is a generally dark, tough,
and aphanitic material comprising at least one-third of the rock.
Under the microscope the tuffs show additional features. Volcanic fragments
are seen to range in size downward to less than 1 millimetre, and to consist of
chloritic andesites or basalts showing wide textural variations, from holocrystalline,
microporphyritic rocks to glassy microvesicular types. Feldspar fragments show
no evidence of attrition following breakage, and the quartz grains are identified as
crystals which show magmatic corrosion and are deeply penetrated by the flow-
banded matrix. Small well-shaped crystals of augite occur in some rocks, which
also contain minute shard-like shapes of fine-grained quartz or feldspar. Magnetite
is well disseminated and accounts for the pronounced magnetic susceptibility of the
rocks, which can be tested with a suspended hand-magnet. The matrix of the rocks
appears as a turbid, largely unresolvable fine-grained aggregate of medium refractive
index and is partly flow textured.
In all three belts of outcrop the feldspathic rocks are accompanied by rare
flows of basalt lava, which are the only extrusive Nicola rocks seen in the area.
The flows are as much as 50 feet thick and may extend laterally for some thousands
of feet. They consist mainly of a dark-grey porphyritic rock with abundant small
phenocrysts of plagioclase feldspar and others of a dark mineral oriented in the plane
of flow. Under the microscope this rock is holocrystalline and consists chiefly of
labradorite feldspar, hornblende, and augite with hornblende mantles, together with
LODE METALS 29
much accessory magnetite and some chlorite and epidote. Near the top of a flow
the non-vesicular rock passes rapidly into a vesicular, less porphyritic variety which
within a few feet may become intimately mixed with red scoriacous lava, and this,
by decrease in the number and size of enclosed masses of the vesicular rock, may
grade upward into a fissile red rock resembling fine-grained tuff. Where these
relationships are sufficiently exposed, they provide the only fully reliable means of
identifying the top of any of the Nicola rocks. Unfortunately, only one flow in the
main feldspathic belt is exposed in this way.
Limy Rocks.—Limy belts which contain roughly equal proportions of limy and
non-limy rocks are numbered southward successively from 1 to 6 (Fig. 3). There
are, in addition, scattered outcrops of limy rocks which have not been correlated
with the recognized belts. In each belt, all gradations exist between pure limestone
and non-limy rocks. The limy rocks are limestones, limy tuffs, tuffaceous limy
greywackes, and limy argillites, whilst the non-limy rocks are similar to the undifferentiated rocks which occur elsewhere. As mapped, the belts are lenticular or
braided, with a thickness as great as 1,400 feet and commonly much less.
Poorly to well preserved fossils appear restricted to the limy rocks. The
pelecypod Halobia was identified by W. R. Danner from outcrops in belt No. 1 at
Lookout Point and indicates that these rocks belong to the Karnian stage of the
Upper Triassic.
The limestones commonly weather grey or tan coloured and are either massive
or foliated. Bedding is not generally seen, except at interfaces with other beds or
where impure laminae are revealed by differential weathering. Massive limestone
appears confined to the south of the main feldspathic belt, and is the principal
component of beds whose thickness is between 50 and 100 feet in belts Nos. 3, 4,
and 5, and less elsewhere. It is a grey or white rock which is either porcellainous or
unevenly grained and somewhat porous, with casts or fragments of fossils. A somewhat impure variety was seen under the microscope to consist predominantly of
fine-grained calcite together with a few clastic grains of calcite, quartz, feldspar, and
volcanic rocks.
Foliated limestone is widely distributed and may locally be associated with
massive limestone, from which it is probably derived by partial recrystallization
under conditions of stress. All limestones seen to the north of the main feldspathic
belt and in the eastern part of belt No. 3 are foliated. They occur in beds which
seldom exceed 40 feet in thickness and which commonly contain thin layers of rocks
similar to those forming adjacent beds. The foliated limestone is a black, grey, or
less commonly white rock which seldom contains fossils and has a compact, generally fine-grained texture. Foliation is expressed by differential weathering as a
lineated, often contorted or swirly pattern whose strike commonly differs from that
of the beds. Some outcrops show a flaggy or platy jointing that is partly curved or
warped, and is thought to be mainly controlled by the foliation. The fabric of the
limestones is frequently complicated by structures which combine flowage of limestone with brecciation and disintegration of the enclosed thin beds. These structures
are described below. Fragments derived from the brecciated beds are dispersed
in the limestone, which therefore assumes a very heterogeneous appearance. Some
of the foliated limestones are pebbly or gritty, and contain crowded, subangular, or
rounded pebbles and smaller fragments of volcanic rocks or occasionally limestone.
This sedimentary detritus is oriented more with the foliation than with the bedding
and may therefore be hard to tell, in some outcrops, from dispersed tectonic fragments. The foliated limestones and rocks adjacent to them are sparingly traversed
by calcite veins. Under the microscope the limestones are seen to be marbles consisting of foliated even-grained aggregates of inequidimensional calcite crystals in
30 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
common alignment. Exceptionally, the rocks have an average grain size as great as
3 millimetres. The black foliated limestones differ from the others only in containing carbonaceous streaks and wisps.
Other limy rocks closely resemble their non-limy counterparts amongst the
undifferentiated rocks. For example, a tuffaceous limy greywacke may differ from
an undifferentiated rock only in the lime content of its fine-grained matrix. This
rock would typically consist mainly of lithic or glassy volcanic detritus, quartz, and
feldspar grains, together with a plentiful fine-grained matrix. A typical limy vitric
tuff is quartz free, and consists largely of closely spaced fragments of volcanic glass
set in a limy aphanitic matrix. Such tuffs occur as beds ranging from a few inches
to as much as 80 feet thick, and are mainly coloured light to dark brown or green.
Although poorly sorted, they frequently possess a granular foliation which may be
primary if parallel to bedding but which may, alternatively, lie across the bedding
and therefore be secondary.
Limy argillite occurs as beds not more than a few feet in thickness, in association with beds of limestone. It is a soft, fissile, rather fossiliferous, fine-grained rock
which is black, brown, or grey in colour and may be banded. Under the microscope
it appears foliated and semi-opaque, and contains much finely divided calcite
together with scattered angular fragments of quartz and feldspar.
Undifferentiated, Non-limy Rocks.—The undifferentiated, non-limy rocks show
a considerable range of fabric and composition. They include lithic, vitric, and
quartz tuffs, tuffaceous greywacke, and argillite, all of which are widely distributed.
The tuffs and argillite occur either as massive beds as much as 100 feet thick or in
thin- to medium-bedded sequences with a variety of other rocks, some of which may
be limy. Tuffaceous greywacke is generally restricted to these varied sequences,
which are best seen to the north of the main feldspathic belt.
The lithic tuffs are hard, compact rocks coloured variously green, grey, dark
red, or black. They are mostly of fine- to medium-grained appearance and are
characterized by abundant volcanic rock fragments set in a dense matrix which comprises from one-quarter to more than one-half of the rock. They differ from the
feldspathic rocks principally in their wider colour range and lack of conspicuous
feldspars. The rocks are mostly poorly sorted. The rock fragments, although
generally similar to those in the feldspathic rocks, seldom exceed one-quarter inch
in size and include pale glassy fragments not seen in the latter rocks. Most are
angular or irregularly globular in shape, but in some beds they are lenticular and
confer a foliation on the rock. Crystal detritus is subordinate in the lithic tuffs and
consists of partly broken plagioclase feldspars up to 1 millimetre in size together
with, in some rocks, rounded or broken quartz crystals which are both small and
scarce. The aphanitic matrix is coloured either light or dark green, grey, or red
and occurs in sufficient quantity to prevent almost all contact between the rock or
crystal fragments. Under the microscope it shows the same ultrafine appearance as
the matrix of the feldspathic rocks, which it closely resembles. It includes slender
microlites of feldspar together with finely granular areas, which may have formed
by partial devitrification of the otherwise glassy material. In places the matrix
shows a banding. Some of the rocks contain well-disseminated magnetite and
possess a pronounced magnetic susceptibility.
The vitric tuffs are distinctive, greyish-green or buff-coloured rocks which are
tough and well foliated, and characterized by a lenticular granular texture. They
occur in alternating beds of differing grain size, ranging from fine to medium grained.
In hand specimens they exhibit rather closely packed, lenticular or rudely ovoid
fragments of assorted murky-white, grey, or greenish volcanic glass, each with a
somewhat fretted outline emphasized by a narrow white border. The fragments are
1
LODE METALS 31
oriented in a wispily foliated, glassy matrix of pale-greenish, grey, or buff colour,
and are seldom accompanied by more than a few small crystal grains of feldspar
and occasionally of quartz. Under the microscope a typical specimen of vitric tuff
consists predominantly of flow-textured, glassy and microcrystalline fragments, many
of which are scarcely distinguishable from the quartzofeldspathic matrix. The latter
encloses a few poorly shaped feldspars, either as single or aggregated crystals or, in
another specimen, as partly broken grains accompanied by others of quartz. The
vitric fragments are mostly between one-half millimetre and 2 millimetres long, and
the length is generally about twice, and rarely as much as eight times, the width of
the fragment. The shape and common orientation of the fragments, together with
the variable, foliated crystallinity and flow-oriented texture of both fragments and
matrix, is responsible for the excellent foliation possessed by these rocks.
The quartz tuffs are characterized chiefly by conspicuous quartz grains and a
porphyritic aspect. They form massive beds which weather white, buff, or dark
brown, and are tough grey rocks containing crystals of quartz and white feldspar
set in a copious matrix of light- or dark-grey colour. Some of dacitic composition
resemble quartz porphyry, and their clastic, bedded nature is obvious only on
weathered surfaces or under the microscope. Aphanitic fragments comprise about
one-quarter of the dacitic quartz tuffs and blend almost invisibly with the matrix,
which differs from the fragments only in a more chloritic and unevenly granular
appearance, as seen microscopically. Whole crystals and jagged fragments of
plagioclase feldspar as much as 3 millimetres in size are accompanied in the matrix
by others of quartz, which also forms rare single crystals within aphanitic fragments.
Whether in the fragments or in the matrix, the unbroken quartz crystals possess
shapes indicative of magmatic resorption. The crystals include and are veined,
embayed, and mantled, partly or completely, by a fine-grained quartzofeldspathic
material, which is identical to the aphanitic fragments and is of igneous origin.
Another quartz tuff, darker and more foliated than the dacitic quartz tuffs, shows
fewer pyroclastic features and a diversity of lithic fragments, of which some are of
rather basic, fine-grained rocks. It has an appreciable magnetic susceptibility,
which is explained by its relatively high content of disseminated magnetite.
The tuffaceous greywackes are thin- to medium-bedded rocks ranging in grain
size from siltstones to grits, and occurring as sequences as much as 100 feet thick.
They are comparatively well sorted and foliated, and appear to have formed by the
rapid deposition of predominantly volcanic detritus, largely of dacitic composition.
Stratigraphic tops seem to be indicated in places by scoured or graded beds, but the
latter may show a reversed gradation and must therefore be used with caution.
Wavy and truncated bedding suggest some pre-consolidational movement or slumping, but effects of this sort are hard to tell from those due to later deformation.
The greywackes are grey rocks that commonly weather buff and consist of lithic
and crystal fragments set in an aphanitic matrix. A typical rock is estimated to
consist of: Quartz, 45 per cent; feldspar, 15 per cent; lithic fragments, 15 per cent;
matrix, 25 per cent. The lithic fragments are partly identical with those in the
dacitic quartz tuffs and partly microvesicular, flow-textured glassy volcanic rocks.
They are mostly subangular to irregular in shape. The crystal grains and fragments
vary in both size and roundness; the smaller are mostly freshly broken chips and
the larger are about 2 millimetres in size and of varied shape. Some of the quartz
is similar to that in the quartz tuffs, and is therefore volcanic in origin. The matrix
of the greywacke is a somewhat chloritic quartzofeldspathic aggregate of fine but
variable grain size. Some of the greywackes are cherty, partly banded rocks, in
which the matrix is excessive and encloses a few lithic fragments as well as numerous
small feldspar fragments and quartz granules.
32 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
Argillite is a soft, grey, dark-brown, or black partly banded rock which frequently contains pyrite and so weathers rust coloured. It forms lenses and beds
which range in width from a fraction of an inch rarely to as much as 100 feet, and
which persist in some cases for several hundreds of feet along the strike. The rock
is unfossiliferous and uniformly fine grained, and breaks either subconchoidally or
with a poor fissility, but where it is locally strongly deformed a perfect cleavage
develops. Under the microscope the rock is seen to consist largely of unresolvable
dark material containing stray fragments of quartz and feldspar.
Spences Bridge Group
Rocks of the Lower Cretaceous Spences Bridge group occupy the western
boundary of the mapped area and include flows, tuffs, agglomerate, and dykes of a
general basic composition. They have not been examined in detail and their structure is poorly known. No contacts with adjacent rock units were observed, but the
group presumably overlies both the Nicola rocks and the Guichon batholith. The
rocks are brown, grey, or green, and weather with a prevalent brown colouration.
Porphyritic basalt or andesite is widely distributed and is a massive rock consisting
predominantly of a dark, microcrystalline or glassy groundmass in which occur
scattered, partly saussuritized laths of plagioclase feldspar together with small crystals of pyroxene and magnetite. A rude flow orientation afforded by the feldspars
varies greatly in direction. Lithic tuff is widespread. It is a medium-grained rock
somewhat resembling but less indurated than the feldspathic rocks of the Nicola
group; in places it contains carbonaceous impressions of plant stems. The tuff
consists chiefly of partly rounded black or red fragments of glassy volcanic rocks,
some of which are vesicular and others porphyritic, together with varying quantities
of whole or broken feldspar laths in a fine-grained matrix. Agglomerate in the
northern part of the outcrop area consists of a tuffaceous matrix enclosing somewhat rounded fragments and blocks of porphyritic volcanic rocks at much as 2 feet
across. Northerly trending dykes of basalt or andesite cut the Spences Bridge rocks
and, in diminishing numbers, also cut the Nicola rocks farther to the east.
Kingsvale Group
Unmineralized andesites and volcanic breccias which occupy a large eastern
part of the area are assigned to the Kingsvale group of upper Lower Cretaceous age.
The rocks are generally poorly stratified and their structure is obscure. At Craigmont, they overlie part of the orebody and rest on an unevenly eroded surface of
weathered Nicola rocks, but to the east in the mine the contact is steep and faulted.
A steep contact may also exist along part of the western margin of the Kingsvale
rocks, adjacent to and parallel with the Winney Creek lineament.
Although the andesites show few of the features which normally serve to
identify extrusive rocks, most if not all are considered to be flows. They are poorly
to moderately vesicular, massive rocks, many of which possess a more or less well-
developed trachytoid texture due to the linear or planar orientation of phenocrysts.
This texture varies widely in attitude and may be steep. At Craigmont the rocks
overlie local basal accumulations of tuff and are seen to be stratified. Volcanic
breccia is widespread throughout the area and consists of rounded to angular fragments or blocks of andesite which are embedded in a matrix of argillized andesite
tuff. The fragments are as much as 2 feet in size and are unsorted and unoriented.
Some of the outcrops form cliffs which are eroded to produce hoodoos, such as the
rock pinnacles that are seen near the highway. No true sediments have been
observed in outcrop, but a coal-ball is reported to have been found in argillic mate-
—
LODE METALS 33
rial associated with Kingsvale volcanic rocks in the 3000 level at the Craigmont
mine.
The Kingsvale rocks mostly weather grey or brown, but some layers show a
pervasive reddish alteration, which appears chiefly to involve oxidation of magnetite
and kaolinization of feldspar. Other layers are altered to a white colour, and these
rocks are argillic and possess swelling properties due to a content of bentonite.
At Craigmont, a bentonitic flow some 30 feet thick rests partly on Nicola rocks
and is irregularly overlain by fresh andesite in a manner suggesting that the white
alteration took place before the succeeding, unaltered rock was deposited. Throughout the Kingsvale rocks, veinlets containing either epidote, quartz, chalcedony,
calcite, or a zeolite are sparingly present, and are very rarely accompanied by trace
amounts of malachite.
The fresh andesites are light or dark grey, aphanitic rocks containing as much
as 30 per cent by volume of phenocrysts. These invariably include prismatic crystals of brown or black hornblende and laths of clear plagioclase feldspar, together
with smaller crystals of one or more of the following minerals: green clinopyroxene,
brown orthopyroxene, and biotite. Vesicles are rare, small, and irregularly shaped,
and may be lined or partly filled by zeolites or other white minerals. Under the
microscope the feldspar in some rocks is labradorite, and the aphanitic groundmass
of the rocks is seen to contain a little disseminated magnetite and very small crystals
of the phenocryst minerals. In hand specimens, fresh andesite shows an appreciable magnetic susceptibility.
Intrusive Rocks
These include rocks of the Guichon batholith and the Coyle stock, and small
intrusive bodies which chiefly occur in the Nicola rocks and the Coyle stock.
The Guichon batholith extends for some 40 miles to the north of the mapped
area and is known to be of early Mesozoic age. Its eastern contact coincides approximately with Guichon Creek and probably joins the southern contact not far
east of the present mapping. The southern contact, as represented in the area, is
poorly exposed and has little or no topographic expression. With some irregularities, it strikes westward from the Eric showing for a distance of about 3 miles and
then west-southwestward for about the same distance before apparently being covered by rocks of the Spences Bridge group. This western part of the mapped contact probably follows a southwesterly prong of the batholith, which apparently
separates Nicola rocks in the present area from others that occur more than 1 mile
farther northwest. Where exposed, the batholithic margin is relatively sharp. The
marginal batholithic rocks contain dark, fine-grained inclusions and are perceptibly
foliated in planes which generally dip steeply and mostly strike parallel to the
mapped trend of the contact. The adjacent Nicola rocks are also foliated, and are
principally either hornfels or schistose and gneissic rocks which are veined in
network fashion by inhomogeneous dioritic material.
The batholithic rocks of the area are principally rather uniform quartz diorites
or, at marginal localities such as at Craigmont, diorites. Granite or quartz mon-
zonite was seen in small amounts at the Eric showing, in association with diorite or
quartz diorite. A prevalent rock at places more or less removed from the contact
is a medium-grained, poorly foliated quartz diorite whose estimated modal composition is typically as follows: Quartz, 15 per cent; orthoclase, 5 per cent; plagioclase,
45 per cent; biotite, 3 per cent; hornblende, 30 per cent; accessory minerals, 2 per
cent. A more porphyritic quartz diorite occurs near the contact of the Spences
Bridge group, and is a medium-grained rock containing hornblendes as much as
1 centimetre in size.
34 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
At Craigmont, two principal varieties of diorite were emplaced prior to mineralization. A finer grained variety enclosing the east end of the orebody is a somewhat foliated mesocratic rock containing small amounts of disseminated quartz and
biotite. The other variety is more porphyritic and occurs apparently as tongue-like,
partly flat-lying masses in the north wallrocks. It contains subhedral to anhedral
hornblendes some of which are as much as one-half centimetre in size.
The Coyle stock intrudes Nicola rocks in the south-central part of the area and
is of irregular shape. It apparently consists of several roughly concordant bodies,
mainly of quartz diorite, and discordant bodies of granite or quartz monzonite. Its
northwestern margin is gently convex and partly coincides with a pronounced topographic lineament that is devoid of exposures. In other directions the margins of the
stock are obscured by Kingsvale rocks or by superficial deposits in the Nicola
Valley.
In the dioritic bodies the prevalent rock is a fine- or medium-grained, mesocratic quartz diorite which consists chiefly of plagioclase, hornblende, and quartz,
and may also contain orthoclase or biotite. This rock is somewhat foliated and
encloses dark, fine-grained xenoliths of varied size and shape. The more elongate
ones tend to lie in the plane of foliation, which generally strikes northeastward and
dips in either direction.
The granitic bodies consist principally of medium- or coarse-grained pink rocks
which are chiefly composed of quartz and microperthitic orthoclase in approximately
equal proportions, together with plagioclase that may be sufficiently plentiful to
justify naming the rock quartz monzonite. Dark minerals are generally less than 10
per cent of the rock, and are either partly chloritized hornblende or biotite, together
with a small amount of disseminated magnetite. The rock is mostly massive and
free of inclusions, but in places it is both foliated and xenolithic. The inclusions are
small, have well-defined outlines, and are of fine-grained granitic composition. The
granitic bodies are in contact with both dioritic and Nicola rocks, which are locally
strongly chloritized. Where observed the major contacts are steep, irregular, and
unchilled, and for considerable distances the country rocks are penetrated by veins
of unchilled granite as much as 60 feet thick. Other veins are of aplite, and cut the
granite as well as the country rocks.
Most of the Nicola rocks adjoining the stock are contact-metamorphosed equivalents of the undifferentiated strata, which have been partly converted to quartzofeldspathic hornfels, gneisses, and chlorite or sericite schists. Limestone or granular
marble, noted in two places, showed no obvious effects of its closeness to the plu-
tonic masses.
Dykes of andesite and basalt occur in all the mapped units except the Kingsvale group. They are, however, rarely seen in the mapped portion of the batholith
and are most numerous in the Nicola group near its contact with the Spences Bridge
group. Most of the dykes strike between north-northwest and northeast, but others
are roughly concordant with easterly trending structural grains in Nicola and dioritic
rocks. The dykes range from a few feet rarely to as much as 200 feet wide, and may
be several thousands of feet long. They consist of dark compact rocks which
weather variously grey, green, brown, or reddish-brown, and which possess an
appreciable magnetic susceptibility. A diabase texture is developed in the centre of
the thicker sheets, but elsewhere the rocks are aphanitic and contain phenocrysts
rarely as much as one-half centimetre in size. The phenocrysts are principally of
white plagioclase feldspar, as well as of hornblende or, less commonly, pyroxene.
Although most dykes are poorly vesicular, some have small empty vesicles that
occur partly oriented with the phenocrysts.
LODE METALS 35
In the Nicola group these basic dykes are cut by less abundant ones of quartz
porphyry and light-coloured andesite. Quartz porphyry dykes were also seen in
dioritic and granitic rocks of the Coyle stock. Light-coloured andesite forms thick
and rather scarce dykes which strike between north-northeast and north-northwest.
It contains abundant small phenocrysts of plagioclase feldspar, prismatic black
hornblende, and biotite, which are oriented in a pale-grey aphanitic matrix. The
rock resembles others assigned to the Kingsvale group and is identical with andesite
of post-mineralization age at Highland Valley.
Quartz porphyry is a tough greenish or grey rock of dacitic composition that
weathers brown or buff. It consists of a plentiful aphanitic matrix with phenocrysts
of quartz and plagioclase and less abundant hornblende and biotite. It forms dykes
and sills as much as 60 feet wide and of diverse attitudes. Southwest of Lookout
Point multiple emplacement of these dykes, mainly on north-northeasterly lines, has
resulted in explosion breccia within an elongate zone which is as much as 4,000 feet
long and 2,500 feet wide. The north end of this zone, which is the part best known,
contains screens of massive porphyry which separate the breccia bodies and grade
into them. The breccia consists of aphanitic porphyry fragments, crystal debris,
and cherty matrix, and has the colour and toughness of massive porphyry. The
fragments are angular or irregular in shape and seldom exceed 2 inches, being
mostly between one-tenth and 1 inch in size. They are cream or pale buff coloured
and contain rare euhedral crystals of quartz which are similar to others which occur
partly broken in the breccia matrix. The matrix is a very fine-grained, partly
cryptocrystalline, quartzofeldspathic material differing only slightly from the
groundmass of the porphyry fragments. Both in outcrop and microscopically, the
breccia exhibits a directional fabric which in some outcrops strikes north-northeastward and is parallel to the adjacent porphyry screens. Veins and replacement
patches of quartz or epidote are abundant, and films of specular hematite occur
rarely on joint surfaces. Pyrite is present in small amounts in porphyry just north
of the breccia zone.
Rock Alteration and Mineralization
In the mapped area, the rocks of the Spences Bridge and Kingsvale groups
contain no primary mineralization and exhibit, respectively, moderate and weak
degrees of propylitic alteration. The Nicola and plutonic rocks show a widespread
alteration of several kinds, in places accompanied by copper or iron mineralization.
The Craigmont orebody contains specular hematite, magnetite, and chalcopyrite with minor amounts of bornite, and the adjacent wallrocks are altered to epidote,
actinolite, and garnet skarns, and are veined and replaced by orthoclase, quartz,
calcite, chlorite, and tourmaline. Pyrite and pyrrhotite also occur near the orebody.
Most of the above-mentioned minerals occur widely in the area, though they have
not been found in such a comprehensive assemblage as at Craigmont. Skarn
minerals are scarcely recorded elsewhere, the sole outcrop being immediately north
of the quartz porphyry breccia zone, where a greenish discoloured marble contains
a brownish-red mineral assumed to be garnet.
Orthoclase metasomatism seems to have occurred only within or close to the
margins of the plutonic rocks, and orthoclase is a feature of some of the mineralized
prospects mentioned below. The most widespread alteration is one involving epidote, chlorite, and quartz, together with calcite or ankeritic carbonate, and generally
accompanied by small amounts of pyrite or specular hematite. Epidote is most
abundant, and occurs as veinlets, alone or with other minerals, and as disseminations
which may locally form as much as 20 per cent of some impure limy rocks, feldspathic tuffs, or flow rocks. Undifferentiated rocks which are affected by this type
36 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
of alteration generally contain less epidote, are a greenish- or bluish-grey in colour,
and are traversed by seams and veinlets of quartz, carbonate, epidote, and chlorite.
Large expanses of these altered rocks occur on either side of the road to Lookout
Point, north of the main belt of feldspathic rocks and continuing through the limy
belt at Lookout Point. In the feldspathic belt, epidote alteration and weak hematite
mineralization are widespread. To the southeast of Lookout Point, bedding joints
in feldspathic rocks are commonly veneered by specular hematite, with the result
that breakage to the joints forms southerly facing cliffs. Specular hematite occurs
in several other units, generally together with epidote and chlorite. Pyrrhotite was
noted only in bedded strata on Lookout Point, where it occurs weakly disseminated
with pyrite and occasional chalcopyrite. Chalcopyrite is fairly common in the
altered rocks of the mapped area, and more often than not is associated with hematite or pyrite in equally small amounts. The principal copper showings have all
recently been trenched or diamond drilled and their positions are shown on Figure 3.
The Titan Queen (Paystin) and Eric showings are about 5,000 feet northwest and
8,000 feet east of the Craigmont orebody, respectively, and are located respectively
within and at the margin of the Guichon batholith. They are generally similar to
other showings elsewhere in the batholith, and involve a locally intense replacement
by chlorite, quartz, and tourmaline, accompanied by chalcopyrite or bornite, at
faults or shear zones in orthoclase-enriched batholithic rock. Magnetite is reported
at both showings, and the adjacent outcrops contain weak disseminations of
chalcopyrite.
About 6,500 feet south-southwest of Lookout Point, on the Hank No. 30
mineral claim, diamond drilling intersected weak iron and copper mineralization in
steeply dipping basalt flows and tuffs in the feldspathic belt. Adjacent outcrops are
strongly epidotized and contain a little specular hematite, pyrite, and chalcopyrite.
Parts of the core contain these metallic minerals and slender veinlets and minor
disseminations of magnetite, together with garnet, albite, quartz, calcite, chlorite,
and epidote. Rare sections of limy strata are partly converted to skarny rock. The
drilled area coincides with a strong but narrow positive magnetic anomaly which is
reported to trend north-northeastward, parallel to the strike of the layered rocks.
An oriented 1-inch cube of flow rock cut from a piece of core from a vertical drillhole showed magnetic polarization in a vertical direction when tested with a
suspended hand-magnet. Observation of the cube showed that numerous magnetite
veinlets, partly with chalcopyrite, tended to share a common strike and to dip at all
angles. Flow orientation of feldspar phenocrysts in the cube of rock was variable
but tended to be steep and to strike approximately parallel to the veinlets.
About 3,000 feet south-southeast of this anomalous area, in the vicinity of
Hank No. 4 claim, trenches expose limy and non-limy strata and quartz porphyry,
together with a weak mineralization which differs from the foregoing principally in
the absence of magnetite.
Immediately east of the road to Lookout Point, hornfels is exposed together
with marble in trenches adjacent to the northern margin of the Coyle stock, and is
partly replaced and veined by orthoclase feldspar. Where brecciated and chloritized,
the hornfels contains small amounts of specular hematite and chalcopyrite.
Structure
The present mapping affords only limited evidence of the structure of the
Promontory Hills area, largely because it does not establish the stratigraphy of the
Nicola rocks, which are those of greatest interest in the area. The following discussion of structure is based on the evidence available, which is by no means conclusive.
LODE METALS
37
Part of the major structure of the Nicola group appears to be a steeply dipping
homocline adjacent to the margin of the Guichon batholith. To the south, the strata
are mainly north dipping and their structural relationship to the rocks close to the
batholith is conjectural.
The strike of the Nicola rocks varies with that of the batholithic margin. In
general, the strata strike northeastward in the central part of the area and eastward in
the southwestern and northeastern parts. From the batholithic margin southward
to, and inclusive of, limy belt No. 3, they mainly dip steeply or are vertical, but to
the south of this belt they either are steep or dip northward at moderate angles.
Stratigraphic tops can be verified at only a few places. In limy belt No. 1 at Lookout Point, graded bedding in two adjacent beds is in opposed directions, but scoured
bedding in a third outcrop and graded bedding 1,500 feet to the southwest both
suggest that the strata face south. This is confirmed by a flow top, already described,
in the northern part of the main feldspathic belt to the southeast of Lookout Point.
It is therefore tentatively concluded that the exposed sequence, at least as far
southward as belt No. 3, is homoclinal and faces south.
No important faults are recognized in the area. Small faults and breccia zones
are numerous in the older rock units and have also been seen in the Kingsvale
rocks. In the Nicola rocks these small faults and breccia zones commonly dip
steeply and strike parallel to the bedding. Strike faults of large displacement have
not been recognized but might not have been found in the present mapping. Many
topographic lineaments occur in the area, and are both concordant and discordant
to the trend of the Nicola rocks. Lineaments on Winney and Birkett Creeks,
respectively, coincide with the margin of the Kingsvale rocks. At Craigmont, these
rocks are known to be partly faulted against the Nicola rocks, and similar relationships may be expected elsewhere. Other lineaments are not known to contain
faults, although several are coincident with zones of rock alteration. One such
lineament, about 2,000 feet long and of northerly trend, passes between the two
described showings on the Hank group, in the west-central part of the area. At
Craigmont, numerous small faults of pre-mineral age occur, in addition to others
whose relative age is not known.
All the folds identified in the area are small and are closely associated with
limestone. Folding on a somewhat larger scale may exist in certain places where
limy rocks possess variable strikes and dips, for example, at the bulge in belt No. 1
and at the western limit of belt No. 5. Small steeply plunging dragfolds of Z-shape
are numerous throughout all but the western parts of limy belts Nos. 1,2, and 3,
and also occur at Craigmont. Dragfolds of diverse shape and attitude and with
amplitudes as great as 30 feet were noted during preliminary mapping to the south
of belt No. 6 in the extreme southwestern part of the area, and occur locally elsewhere. The diverse plunge of dragfolds in the area cannot be explained by major
folding into simple anticlines and synclines. At present no complete explanation
of the dragfolding can be given, but it appears likely that the steeply plunging drag-
folds have resulted from strike-slip movement in upturned beds. The direction of
this apparent relative movement was right handed, or north side moving east, and
its cause is so far unknown.
The complex structures prevalent in the northernmost limy belts were partly
investigated by mapping on a scale of 50 feet to the inch at Lookout Point. This
flat and relatively well-exposed area, which measures about 1,500 feet northeasterly
and as much as 600 feet across, covers the full width of limy belt No. 1 at this point,
and is about one-third underlain by outcrops. The strata in general strike eastward
and are either vertical or dip steeply in one or other direction. Their lithological
character has already been described. They comprise a variegated sequence of
38 MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960
massive to thin-bedded rocks which include foliated limestones, thin beds of limy
argillite and argillite, and granular to coarsely fragmental limy and non-limy rocks.
Single beds could not in general be traced between outcrops, and the mapping consisted principally of recording the distribution, nature, and attitude of the secondary
structures present in the rocks. The non-limy beds of thickness exceeding a few
feet are massive, but the remaining beds show a variety of secondary structures
which include foliation, cleavage, dragfolds, and less easily defined structures which
have apparently resulted from the modification of the other structures.
Cleavage forms one or occasionally two sets of steeply dipping fractures striking
between northeast and northwest in rocks other than limestone. The fractures are
spaced at irregular intervals, ranging from one-quarter inch to several inches, and
are discordant to other structures. They locally offset the bedding planes by successively repeated displacements, each not exceeding a fraction of an inch.
Foliation, in the restricted sense used in this discussion, is a secondarily imposed granular orientation which generally lies at variance with, and frequently
obscures, the bedding. At Lookout Point, almost all the foliation strikes in various
northeasterly directions and possesses steep dips, which are generally either vertical
or toward the northwest but may occasionally be toward the southeast. In rocks
other than limestone it strikes between north 35 degrees east and north 55 degrees
east. In the limestones, it strikes in various directions, mostly ranging from north
35 degrees east to almost parallel with the bedding, and is locally dragfolded and
interrupted, deflected, or convoluted adjacent to brecciated rock fragments contained
in the limestone. The gritty and pebbly limestones, which are full of detrital rock
fragments, are commonly foliated in a northeasterly direction subparallel to the
bedding and the fragments are oriented in the foliation. Fine-grained, banded, non-
limy beds, generally of siltstone or argillite, show plications or wrinkles of very
small amplitude whose axial planes correspond in direction with the foliation of
adjacent beds.
Dragfolds are small and confined within limestone beds, whose interfaces with
adjacent, more competent beds are occasionally warped, buckled, or wrinkled, but
are not dragfolded. The limestone beds include layers, 1 foot or less thick, of
banded argillite, vitric tuff, or other compact rocks, which are separated by limestone layers ranging from an inch or two in thickness to several feet. The limestone
beds may be as much as 40 feet thick, and they alternate with relatively non-limy
massive assemblages as much as 80 feet thick. The dragfolds may be simple or
complex, and may be either well preserved or greatly disrupted by brecciation. The
amplitude of the unbrecciated dragfolds is generally not more than 1 or 2 feet, and
may be much less. Exceptionally, it is as much as 15 feet, and such folds contain
more of the competent layers and correspondingly less of limestone. The axes of
the folds vary somewhat in plunge, but most are steep or vertical. With few exceptions, dragfolds are Z-shaped and their axial planes strike northeastward and dip
steeply, roughly parallel to the foliation of the containing limestone. Simple
S-shaped dragfolds are rare, and probably in all cases are subsidiary to larger
adjacent Z-shaped dragfolds. Where the structure is least complicated, a limestone
bed strikes uniformly between massive beds and contain- Library Home /
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Lode Metals British Columbia. Legislative Assembly 1962
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Item Metadata
| Title | Lode Metals |
| Alternate Title | MINES AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES REPORT, 1960 |
| Creator |
British Columbia. Legislative Assembly |
| Publisher | Victoria, BC : Government Printer |
| Date Issued | [1962] |
| Extent | Foldout Map: Figure 3 GEOLOGY OF PROMONTORY HILLS AREA MERRITT; Foldout Map: Figure 5 LOWER LAWLESS CREEK AREA TULAMEEN; Foldout Map: Figure 7 HORN SILVER MINE; Foldout Map: GOLCONDA WORKINGS KEREMEOSMINES LTD. Figure 8; Foldout Map: BRITISH COLUMBIA ASBESTOS OCCURENCES Figure 14; Foldout Chart: Table 10. - Monthly Natural-gas Disposition, 1959 and 1960 -- p. 191 |
| Genre |
Legislative proceedings |
| Type |
Text |
| FileFormat | application/pdf |
| Language | English |
| Identifier | J110.L5 S7 1962_V01_03_001_267 |
| Collection |
Sessional Papers of the Province of British Columbia |
| Source | Original Format: Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. Library. Sessional Papers of the Province of British Columbia |
| Date Available | 2018-01-12 |
| Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
| Rights | Images provided for research and reference use only. For permission to publish, copy or otherwise distribute these images please contact the Legislative Library of British Columbia |
| CatalogueRecord | http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=1198198 |
| DOI | 10.14288/1.0363082 |
| AggregatedSourceRepository | CONTENTdm |
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