Work History

First staked as May cl (Y7970) in Jun/66 by B. Haskell.
Cominco Ltd restaked the occurrence in May/95 as part of large block of northwest trending Strike cl 1-320 (YB59582). Later in the summer the company carried out silt sampling and an airborne EM/magnetic geophysical survey. In 1998, Cominco carried out follow up ground geophysics, soil and silt sampling, prospecting and geological mapping and diamond drilling of two holes (245.4 m) in the northeast corner of the property.

Capsule Geology

The area is underlain by two suites of rocks; the Early Mississippian Wolverine Lake succession and the Early Permian Campbell Range succession (Murphy et al., 2001). Earlier authors called these units Domain B and C. The oldest rocks in the area are the Wolverine Lake succession first mapped and recognized at the Wolverine deposit (Minfile Occurrence #105G 072) located 10 km to the southwest. The youngest stratigraphic unit present in the occurrence area is unit MWf, described as a tan to grey muscovite-quartz phyllite of felsic volcanic and subvolcanic protolith. It is overlain by unit MWt, a thinly interbedded (cm scale), massive to granular siliceous rock and light colored phyllite (metatuff and exhalite). The siliceous rocks are pale-colored, locally massive and bedded on metre-scale at base where associated with baritic iron formation. It is darker near the top of the unit where intercalated phyllite is dark grey.
The Campbell Range succession overlies the Wolverine Lake succession. Murphy and Piercey (2000) believe the contact between the two succession is depositional. Unit PPCb1, forms the basal unit of the succession. It is comprised of coarse basaltic breccia, pillowed and massive basaltic lavas, gabbro, diabase, and maroon and green chert. It is foliated and tightly folded in the occurrence area. Unit PPCb1 is overlain by unit PPCs, described as a heterogenous unit composed of carbonaceous argillite, quartz sandstone, chert, chert-pebble conglomerate and discontinuous bodies of limestone and diamictite. The succession is capped by Unit PPCb2, described as similar to unit PPCb1 and consisting of coarse basaltic breccia, pillowed and massive basaltic lavas, gabbro, diabase and maroon and green chert. In the occurrence area it is also foliated and tightly folded. Pennsylvanian to Permian ultramafic rocks intrude all levels of the succession.
The area has been glaciated but bedrock on upper slopes is relatively well exposed with little or no till cover. The rocks strike northwesterly and dip apparently in a homoclinal fashion to the northeast. The rocks are regionally metamorphosed to sub-greenschist facies, characterized by epidote alteration and weak foliation sub-parallel to bedding. To the northwest gentle folds indicate the sequence occupies the eastern limb of a major fold. Lineations suggest a shallow plunge to the northwest.
At the Wolverine deposit volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization occurs within unit MWt, near the contact with the underlying carbonaceous phyllite. Few massive sulphide deposits have been discovered in the Campbell Range succession but Piercey (et al., 1999) suggests that units PPCb1 and PPCb2 could host VMS style deposits.
Mapping by Cominco (Bannister, 1998) appears to verify Murphy¿s and other mapping. They reported that the southern third and the northern portion of the claim area, consists of chloritic pillowed basalt flows, epidotized and silicified lapilli tuffs and coarser clastic volcanic rocks (Campbell Range succession). A sequence of layered metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks occupy the central portions of the property. The metasedimentary rocks are described as fine grained grey-green, variably carbonaceous, siltstone to mudstone. Metavolcanic rocks are reported to be represented by both a mafic and a felsic component. Felsic metavolcanic rocks are described as finely foliated quartz-sericite +/-feldspar schists, while the mafic component is represented by chloritic andesitic tuffs and minor mafic sills (Wolverine Lake succession).
Cominco¿s 1995 silt sampling program identified several drainages anomalous in Cu and Ba. The airborne survey produced two strong, coincident EM-magnetic anomalies. The follow up ground geophysics program outlined numerous (HLEM) conductors flanking strong magnetic features. Silt sampling of a stream north of the ST3 grid returned five adjacent samples highly anomalous in Cu, Ni and Cr. Soil samples collected in 1996 and 97 returned several samples moderate to strongly anomalous in Cu and Ni in an area underlain by mafic flows. Geological mapping identified several small gossanous zones within the mafic rocks. These zones consist of primary breccias of small mafic fragments, floating in an Fe-rich carbonate matrix, with up to 2-5 % pyrite. A sample from one of these zones, containing significant pyrite, returned 80 ppm Au and 1 148 ppm Cu.
Cominco focused its 1998 work program on a large area of ferricrete that is coincident with an airborne magnetic high and a weak, single line EM conductor. Highly anomalous Cu values (to 11 920 ppm) were returned from soil samples collected from within and downslope of the ferricretes. Further prospecting in the area indentified malachite/calcite veined hematitic cherts, malachite veinlets in leucogranite and malchite stained mafic volcanics, but no significant amount of sulfides were found. While results of the drilling were considered generally poor by Cominco, DDH ST98-01 did intercept 1.9 m of hematitic chert containing several veins (up to 3.5 cm thick) of massive fine grained pyrite with 3-10% disseminated fine grained chalcopyrite that returned 1.9 % Cu and 5.7 g/t Ag. The lack of an EM/Mag target with a strong enough signature to represent significant mineralization, lead Cominco to suggest that no significant sulfide deposit was present in the area.

References

COMINCO LTD, Mar/97. Assessment Report #093612 by D.A. Senft and D. Hall.

COMINCO LTD, May/97. Assessment Report #093457 by D.A. Senft and R.D. Holroyd.

COMINCO LTD, Jun/98. Assessment Report #093815 by V.L. Bannister.

COMINCO LTD, Dec/98. Assessment Report #093914 by P.A. MacRobbie, R.K. Mann and R.D. Johnston.

MURPHY, D.C., AND PIERCEY, S.J., 1999. Finlayson project: Geological evolution of Yukon-Tanana Terrane and its relationship to Campbell Range belt, northern Wolverine Lake map area, southeastern Yukon. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 1998, C.F. Roots and D.S. Emond (eds.), Exploration and Geological Services Division, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 47-62.

MURPHY, D.C. and PIERCEY, S.J., 1999. Geological map of parts of Finlayson Lake (105G/7, 8 and parts of 1, 2, and 9) and Frances Lake (parts of 105H/5 and 12) map areas, southeastern Yukon (1:100 000-scale). Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Open File 1999-4.

MURPHY, D.C. AND PIERCEY, S.J., 2000. Syn-mineralization faults and their re-activation, Finlayson Lake massive sulphide district, Yukon-Tanana Terrane, southeastern Yukon. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 1999, D.S. Emond and L.H. Weston (eds.), Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 55-66.

MURPHY et al., 2001. Finlayson Lake Targeted Geoscience Initiative (southeastern Yukon), Part 1: Bedrock Geology. In Yukon Exploration and Geology, 2001, Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 189-207.

PIERCEY, S.J., HUNT, J.A. and MURPHY, D.C., 1999. Lithogeochemistry of meta-volcanic rocks from Yukon-Tanana Terrane, Finlayson Lake region, Yukon: Preliminary results. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology 1998, C.F. Roots and D.S. Emond (eds.), Exploration and Geological Services Division, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 125-138.

PLINT, H.E., 1995. Geological mapping in the Campbell Range, southeastern Yukon. In: Yukon Exploration and Geology, 1994, Exploration and Geological Services Division, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, p. 47-58.