Work History

Staked by P. Versluce and associates in Aug/70 as H cl 1-48 (Y42550), which were optioned briefly in 1971 by the Wolf Lake JointVenture (Rayrock Mines Ltd, Ashland Oil Canada Ltd, and Canadian Industrial Gas & Oil Ltd).
The Klinkit Joint Venture (Du Pont of Canada Exploration Ltd & Duval International Corporation), staked Pont cl 1-112 (YA29063) and Pont cl 137-152 (YA29199) to the south in Jun/78, and conducted mapping and sampling in 1978 and 1979.
Restaked as A.S. cl 1-49 (YA68453) in Jun/82 by Arizona Silver Corporation and Continental Silver Corporation, and as Ruger cl 1-24 (YA91525) in Aug/86 by R. Stack, who performed mapping and trenching in 1987.
Restaked with GPS cl 1-104 (YB35118) in Oct/92 by Noranda Exploration Company Ltd.
Restaked as Ram cl 1-64 (YB89735) by Birch Mountain Resources Ltd in Aug/97. The company staked Ram cl 65-106 (YB90649) to the west and Ram cl 109-152 (YB90649) to the north in Oct/97. In 1998 the company carried out reconnaisance scale geological mapping and rock sampling over the claims.

Capsule Geology

The area is located 25 km north of the Yukon-British Columbia border, northeast of Swift River, Yukon. The occurrence appears to lie on strike with the Atom occurrence (Minfile Occurrence #105B 026) located approximately 7.5 km to the southeast.
Mineralization is in rocks of the Ram Creek assemblage (mainly Mississippian age), a narrow belt of rocks that trends 45 km in a northwesterly direction between the Cassiar Platform to the northeast and Dorsey assemblage to the southwest. The Ram Creek assemblage is now generally accepted to be part of the Yukon-Tanana terrane, and Roots et al. 2000 believed it to be composed of structurally interleaved slices of arc-derived volcaniclastic and marine sedimentary rocks. Quartz-eye sericite schist is exposed on ridge spurs west of Hidden Lake, and further northwest (Roots and Heaman, 2001). The Ram stock of mid-Permian age intrudes the Ram Creek Assemblage immediately southwest, and the fault separating this assemblage from Cassiar Platform rocks lies with 1 km to the northeast. In addition to complex pre-Permian deformation, this area has been thermally metamorphosed, first by the Ram Stock, then by Jurassic diorite (2 km southwest) and finally in Cretaceous time by the Cassiar batholith to the north and the Seagull batholith to the south.
Skarn float was found at several places in an area underlain by clastic and pyroclastic rocks and intruded by intensely sheared phases of the Permian Ram quartz monzonite stock. The float may be derived from adjacent clastic and carbonate rocks belonging to the Cassiar Platform located to the north. Assays on float range from 7.5-11.3% Zn, 0.06-2.7% Pb, 3.4-126.9 g/t Ag, trace to 13.7g/t Au, 0.02-0.1% Cu, and trace to 0.25% WO3. Black sphalerite and pyrite veins roughly concordant with banding in silicious hornfels have also been observed in the area.
The Pont group was staked to cover a tin anomaly south of the skarn showing but no source was found.
Birch Mountain Resources carried out a cursary examination of the Ram claims as part of a larger program carried out on First Yukon Silver¿s adjoining Swift River property. A few grab samples were collected from the east side of the Ram claim block but no samples appear to have been collected at this occurrence. Birch Mountain interpreted the mineralization observed on the adjoining Swift River property as sedimentary (possibly volcanic) exhalative but Pb isotope studies by Mortensen and Gabites, 2002 suggest that most of the mineralization in the region is epigenetic and related to mid-Triassic to mid-Jurrassic intrusions.

References

BIRCH MOUNTAIN RESOURCES LTD, Sep/98. Assessment Report #093904 by G. DePaoli.

D¿EL REY SILVA, L.J.H. et al., 2001. A structural analysis of the upper Swift River area (105B\3), Yukon. Part 1: Dan Zn occurrence and implications for sulfide mneralization. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 2000, D.S. Emond and L.H. Weston (eds.), Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

HARMS T.A. AND STEVENS, R.A. 1995. Investigations in the Dorsey terrane, Part 2: lithologies and structure of (?) Paleozoic stratified rocks in the Stikine Ranges, northern British Columbia; in Current Research 1995-A; Geological Survey of Canada, p. 129-133.

KLINKIT JOINT VENTURE, Jun/79. Assessment Report #090470 by F.M. Smith.

MINERAL INDUSTRY REPORT, 1971 AND 1972, p. 110; 1978, p. 55-56.

MORTENSEN, J.K. AND GABITES, J. E., 2002. Lead Isotope constraints on the metallogeny of southern Wolf Lake, southeastern Teslin and Northern Jennings river map areas, Yukon and British Columbia: Preliminary results. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 2001, D.S. Emond, L.H. Weston and L.L. Lewis (eds.), Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon region, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 179-188.

ROOTS, C.F. ET AL., 2000. Revision mapping of the Yukon Tanana and equivalent terranes in Northern British Columbia and southern Yukon Territory between 1310 and 1320 W; Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research 2000-A4, 10p.

WOLF LAKE JOINT VENTURE, Oct/71. Assessment Report #060881 by R.J. Cathro.

YUKON EXPLORATION AND GEOLOGY 1982, p. 101; 1997, p. 20, 37, 38; 1998, p. 20.