Work History

Staked as Trout cl (Y74234) in Sep/73 by Union Oil Company of Canada Ltd, which carried out geological mapping and rock sampling during the field season.

Capsule Geology

The area is centered on the Pool Creek map sheet (NTS 95C/5) located approximately 165 km east-northeast of Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. The area was mapped regionally (1:253 440 scale) in late 1950's by Douglas and Norris (1959) of the Geological Survey of Canada and was further updated by fieldwork conducted by Douglas in 1972 (Douglas, 1976). In 2000, Pigage and Allen (2001) of the Yukon Geology Program (now known as the Yukon Geological Survey), began 1:50 000 scale bedrock mapping on NTS map sheet 95C/5, as part of the Central Foreland Ancient Pacific Margin National Mapping (NATMAP) project. A geological compilation drawn at 1:100 000 scale and which includes the Pool Creek area was released in 2004 by Fallas et al., of the Geological Survey of Canada.
The occurrence is located approximately half way between Pool Creek and the Beaver River and lies at the boundary marking the lateral facies transition from carbonate platform sediments of the Macdonald Platform to the fine clastic basinal sediments of Selwyn Basin. The transition is rapid, but is also foreshorten by the West Grayling and Pool Creek thrust faults.

The occurrence area is underlain by a thick, monotonous succession of thick-bedded generally nonfossiliferous, medium-grey, tan-weathering dolostones assigned to the Silurian to Devonian age Beaver River map unit. This unit is unconformably overlain by a succession of dark gray to black, siliceous shale and bedded cherts assigned to the Devonian to Carboniferous age Besa River Formation. The Besa River Formation is in turn overlain by a thick succession of quartz sandstone and interbedded black shales representing the lower member of the Lower Carboniferous age Mattson Formation.

The origin and geological history of this occurrence is sketchy and the data regarding this occurrence appears to have been taken from an internal engineering report prepared for the Union Oil Company of Canada Ltd. According to historical accounts, the occurrence consists of four vertical barite veins, 0.3 to 1.8 m wide that cut crinoidal dolostone of the Silurian to Devonian Beaver River map unit. The dolostone trends north and dips 25 degrees east. The four veins are exposed for a strike length of 82.3 m, within an area measuring 51.8 m wide. Two chip samples of unknown length assayed 77.0 and 87.8% BaSO4.