Work History

Discovered by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1944 and staked in Aug/44 by L.S. Fraser as Norma (4291) and Lucky Lu cl (4292). Restaked as a single Jean cl (63287) in Jul/52 by T.O. Connolly; as Bar cl 1-4 (Y77857) and Barite cl 1-12 (Y77872) in Jul/62 by P. Versluce, who built a tote road in 1963 and mined about 2.7 tonnes of barite.
Restaked by Versluce in Aug/66 as BA cl 1-2 (Y10082), and optioned from Oct/69 to Jun/70 by Mineral Hill Mines Ltd, which added HM cl 3-8 (Y38937) in Oct/69. H.S. Aikins staked the Barry cl 1-14 (Y75454) around the BA group in Jun/73 and both groups were optioned by Fosco Mining Ltd and later assigned to Tri Canadian Mining Company Ltd in 1974.
The showing reverted back to Versluce in 1975. Aikins restaked his ground in Sep/76 as JM cl 1-3 (YA8146), which were transferred to Tri Canadian Mining Company Ltd.
The JM and surrounding BA claims were restaked in Apr/81 as Char cl 1-18 (YA59927) by C.W. Friday Construction Ltd, which mapped and sampled in 1982 before transferring the claims to H. Versluce; in Jun/85 as Webb cl 1-20 (YA87037) by G. Clarke; and in May/87 as Rite cl 1-2 (YA97367) by Dodgex Ltd, which performed mapping in 1988.
R. Zuran staked Bar cl 1-2 (YB57643) 1 km to the east in Jun/95. Zuran carried out a brief geological mapping program in 1996.
Restaked as Barite cl 1-4 (YC09090) in Sep/98 by A Matovich. Arthor John Sr. staked Slyde cl 2-26 to the north in Oct/98 and carried out prospecting and rock sampling in 1999.

Capsule Geology

The area is located approximately 35 km southwest of Ross River, Yukon. Rocks underlying the area are assigned to the Cassiar Terrane, a thick sequence of miogeoclinal clastic and carbonate sedimentary rocks that were deformed during Mesozoic arc-continent collision and by uplift caused by Cretaceous granitic intrusions. This portion of the Cassiar Terrane is divided into four thrust panels that have been displaced in a northeast direction. The Seagull-Porcupine Thrust underlies Seagull Creek, (to the southeast), and sedimentary units have been uplifted and subjected to block faulting in a northwest trending window known as the Ketza-Seagull Arch. The Slyde property lies south of the St Cyr Fault and north of the Pass Peak Thrust within the structurally complex Ketza-Seagull Arch. The Bacon Creek Stock, a mid-Cretaceous quartz monzonite intrusion lies approximately 5 km to the southwest (Abbott, 1986).
The occurrence area is underlain by a sequence of Upper Proterozoic to Lower Mississippian calcareous mica-schist, marble, phyllite, interbedded mafic tuffs and flows, black graptolitic shale and dolomite. Thrusting has placed older rocks over top of younger units making stratigraphic relationships difficult to determine with any certainty. Strataform barite and lead-zinc-silver mineralization occurs on Barite Mountain in carbonates and black slate.
The occurrence consists of at least 18 barite veins 0.3 to 3 m wide, plus a zone of brecciated limestone 9.1 m wide, which is partly cemented by barite. The barite mined in 1963 was hand sorted from talus. The Geological Survey of Canada estimated in 1945 that 45,360 tonnes of barite is present. In 1974 Tri Can Mining Company Ltd estimated potential reserves of approximately 230,425 tonnes of barite.
Other barite veins were seen to the north and east up to 3.2 km away. Two analyses by the Geological Survey of Canada (1945) returned 99.2 to 99.7% BaSO₄, 0.17 to 0.23% SrSO₄ and 0.1 to 0.23% CaO. Sampling carried out by Tri Can Mining returned a minimum average grade of 97% BaSO₄. The host rock is Middle Silurian to Middle Devonian dolomite, which is thrust over Upper Devonian to Lower Mississippian black slate.
Zuran spent two days examining the barite veins for their commercial use as drilling mud. Exploration work on the Slyde claims was focused on float boulders containing veins of sphalerite, pyrite and galena with barite, limonite carbonate gague in graphitic schist and brecciated limestone. The float mineralization was traced to several cliffs on the north side of Barite Mountain giving the Strataform veining a potential strike length of approximately 1 km. Fourteen rock samples from various prospecting trips were assayed and six samples returned > 10,000 ppm Zinc. Copper and silver values were weakly anomalous and lead values were low to background.