Work History

Staked as Cre cl 1-84 (YA67725) in May/82 by the McDame Project (BRX Mining & Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Eldorado Minerals & Petroleum Corporation and Highmark Resources Ltd), which performed mapping and geochem sampling later in the year.
Restaked within Sam cl 1-86 (YB15973) in Aug/89 by First Yukon Silver Resources Inc. The company staked Groundhog cl 1-52 (YB35254) to the west in Dec/92.
In Apr/97, Birch Mountain Resources Ltd acquired an option to earn 100% interest in First Yukon Silver¿s Swift River property which included this occurrence. Birch Mountain concentrated most of their exploration efforts on the Bar (Minfile Occurrence #105B 027) and Atom (Minfile occurrence #105B 026) occurrences, located 6 to 10 km to the east. In Aug/97 Birch Mountain restaked the Groundhog claims as Ram cl 1-64 (YB89735) and carried out a cursary examination of the Sam and Ram claim blocks. In Mar/99 the company dropped its option and returned all the claims to First Yukon Silver.

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 6 km to the southeast and is siuated approximately half way between the Cassiar Batholith to the north and the Ram Creek stock to the south
The occurrence location is underlain by the Ram Creek assemblage (mainly Mississippian age), a narrow belt of clastic and volcanic rocks that trends 45 km in a northwesterly direction between the Cassiar Platform to the northeast and Dorsey assemblage to the southwest. Harms and Stevens 1996, originally assigned the Ram Creek assemblage to the Dorsey terrane but it is now generally accepted to be part of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. The Ram Creek assemblage appears to be composed of structurally interleaved slices of oceanic and continental crustal rocks. The Permian Ram Creek stock intrudes the Ram Creek assemblage to the south and a fault is presumed to separate the assemblage from Cassiar Platform rocks and the Cassiar batholith to the north.
Information on this occurrence is sketchy. It is likely that the occurrence marks the central position of several tin anomalies identified through soil and stream sediment sampling undertaken on the adjacent Hidden occurrence (Minfile Occurrence 105B 025). It is quite possible that the anomalies originate to the north i.e. where the Cassiar batholith intrudes Cassiar Platform rocks.
First Yukon Silver and Birch Mountain Resources focused their efforts on identifying and understanding the numerous Pb-Zn-Ag skarn (stratabound?) deposits located throughout the region. Birch Mountain collected a few grab samples from the Sam claims but none from the actual occurrence area.
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.

MINERAL INDUSTRY REPORT 1978, by J. Morin et al., p. 56.

MORTENSEN, J.K. AND GABITES, J. E., 2002. Lead Isotopes 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.

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