Work History
Staked as Alp cl (Y33052) in Oct/69 by a joint venture between Canadian Industrial Oil and Gas Ltd, Canadian Southern Petroleum Ltd, Sabre Petroleum Company Ltd and Wainoco Oil and & Chemicals Ltd, which performed mapping and sampling in 1970.
Restaked as Ross cl 1-8 (YA76667) in Jul/82 by a joint venture between Hudson Bay Exploration and Development Company Ltd and Minorco Canada Ltd, which performed mapping, geochemical sampling and hand trenching later in the year.
Restaked as Who cl 1-66 (YB3272) in Oct/89 by Noranda Exploration Company Ltd, which performed mapping, geochemical and mag surveys and Kubota trenching in 1990. Noranda added Who cl 67-108 (YB18137) in Jun/91 and carried out further trenching.
Restaked as Alp cl 1-18 (YB65243) by Eagle Pains Resources Ltd and Miner River Resources Ltd in Mar/96, which carried out geological mapping, and minor hand trenching and sampling later in the year. In Jun/99 Eagle Plains and Miner River Resources amalgamated.
Capsule Geology
The area is located in the north-central portion of the Selwyn Basin, near the boundary with the Mackenzie Platform. The area is underlain by Devonian to Mississippian sedimentary rocks which have been intruded by mid-Cretaceous granitic intrusions.
The occurrence overlies the intrusive contact between a medium-grained, mid-Cretaceous granodiorite pluton belonging to the Tombstone Suite and black argillites, phyllites and slates tentatively assigned by Gordey (1999) to the Mississippian Keno Hill Assemblage. Devonian to Mississippian sedimentary rocks assigned to the Earn Assemblage occur to the north and south. The contact zone between the pluton and sedimentary rocks is represented by purple-grey, pyrite-pyrrhotite (+ minor arsenopyrite) hornfels, ranging between 200 and 1 000 m thick.. A series of 1 - 6 m thick quartz-porphyry dykes, thought to be associated with the pluton, intrude argillites and slates belonging the Keno Hill Assemblage. To date five dykes have been identified, all of which strike southeasterly and dip steeply to the south. The longest dyke has been traced for 1.6 km.
No mineralization was observed in the pluton itself. The hornfels zone contains minor amounts (1-2%) of very fine-grained, disseminated arsenopyrite and 1-2 mm arsenopyrite stringers. Similarly minor amounts of arsenopyrite and quartz-arsenopyrite stringers were also observed within slates lying at the margins of the hornfels zone. The felsic dykes which all appear to be of similar composition, contain arsenopyrite in the form of fine disseminations, large ¿clots¿, blebs and large euhedral crystals within milky quartz. The dykes are commonly anomalous in arsenic and gold. Preliminary geochemical studies suggest a correlation between gold, arsenic, bismuth and antimony values. The best assays on selected dyke specimens returned up to 4.1 g/t Au and 3.4 g/t Au in 1970 and up to 17.7 g/t Au in 1982.
Soil sampling by Noranda outlined a 7 km long As, Cu and Sb anomaly centred over the hornfels zone. A second, smaller Au, Sr and Bi anomaly was outlined 1 km north of the occurrence. The magnetometer survey outlined several anomalies, the best of which occurred to the northwest, off of Noranda¿s claims. Follow-up prospecting failed to reveal a possible source for the anomaly. Trenching, mapping and sampling of the felsic dykes returned values similar to earlier programs. The best chip sample, collected from dyke #1 returned 58.9 g/t Au over 1 m.
Eagle Plains and Miner River¿s exploration work verified early results. A 1.5 m chip sample collected from vein #1 returned 13 g/t Au.
References
ABBOTT, G. 1982. Geology of the MacMillian Fold Belt: Evidence for Devonian faulting (105 O SE and parts of 105 P SW). Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. EGSD Open File 1983-1.
CANADIAN INDUSTRIAL GAS AND OIL LTD, Nov/70. Assessment Report *#092547 by P.G. Marshall.
EAGLE PLAINS RESOURCES LTD AND MINER RIVER RESOURCES LTD, May/97. Assessment Report #093615 by J.R. Dickie.
GORDEY, S.P., AND MAKEPEACE, A.J., 1999. Yukon digital geology, S.P. Gordey and A.J. Makepeace (comp.); Geological Survey of Canada, Open File D3826, and Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Open File 1999-1 (D)
NORANDA EXPLORATION COMPANY LTD, Jan/91. Assessment Report #092913 by D.J. Kelsch.
YUKON EXPLORATION AND GEOLOGY 1982, p. 163.
YUKON EXPLORATION 1990, p. 11. 1991, p. 11.
