Work History

Originally staked as Mehitabel cl (Y33451) in Aug/70 by Panoche Mining Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Cyprus Mining Corporation. The occurrence straddles the border between Yukon and Northwest Territories (NWT) just north of the headwaters of the Hess River.
Restaked as Num cl 6-11 (YA77575) in Sep/82 by a joint venture between Amax Northwest Mining Company Ltd and Canada Tungsten Mining Corporation. The joint venture partners carried out geological mapping and geochemical sampling in 1982; magnetometer surveying in 1983; and enlarged the claim block in Jul/84. No report(s) of this or previous work in the area could be located within either the Yukon Mineral Assessment Report Index or the Mineral Showing Database for the NWT.
Restaked as Hit cl 1-8 (YC01393) in Sep/98 by Eagle Plains Resources Ltd, subsequent to carrying out geochemical sampling in the area. The company carried out prospecting and geochemical rock, silt and soil sampling in Jul/99, before staking Hit cl 9-30 (YC01879) and drilling two holes (182.6 m) in Aug/99 on Hit cl 6.

Capsule Geology

The area is underlain by interbedded Ordovician to mostly Devonian Road River Group thin bedded silty limestone and limestone, shale, minor chert and mudstone and Cambrian to Lower Ordovician siliceous shale with minor limestone. A roughly 2.5 by 2 km stock and a number of smaller satellite bodies of mid-Cretaceous aged granodiorite have intruded the sedimentary units causing extensive hornfelsing and widespread development of calc-silicate skarn and lesser magnetite skarn. Chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite with traces of molybdenite and scheelite occur within skarn zones developed within the more calcareous units.
Work in the area has identified four mineralized showings:
1) The Discovery zone, at the occurrence location marker, consists of a small skarn pod containing massive sulfide mineralization. Sampling of talus fines downslope of this showing returned up to 1 097 ppb Au.
2) The Ridge zone, 1.4 km south-southeast of the Discovery zone, where talus sampling returned 1.3 g/t Au over 6 m.
3) The McDame zone, 1.2 km northeast of the Discovery zone on the north flank of the main stock, where soil sampling delineated a 150 m long gold-arsenic anomaly with peak values of 1 455 ppb Au and 1 570 ppm As. A sample of granodiorite float cut by a narrow calcite-arsenopyrite vein retruned 2 506 ppb Au.
4) The Gully zone, 1.75 km east of the Discovery zone on the east-northeast flank of the main stock, consists of fine grained disseminated arsenopyrite in calcareous siltstone. Sampling of the showing in 1998 returned a weighted average of 7.85 g/t Au over 7 m. Followup sampling showed that the mineralization within the favourable horizon pinches out up-dip away from the intrusive stock. Drilling in 1999 intersected the favourable horizon 30 m along strike to the northwest from the showing, where the best result was 2 566 ppb Au over a 0.9 m interval of pyrrhotitic brecciated calcareous siltstone cut by carbonate veins.

References

ABBOTT, J.G., 1983. Geology of the MacMillan Fold Belt (parts of NTS 105 O/8, 105 P/5), 1:50 000 scale. Exploration and Geological Services Division, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Open File 1983-1.

ARCHER, CATHRO and ASSOCIATES LTD, 1972. Northern Cordillera Mineral Inventory.

EAGLE PLAINS RESOURCES LTD, Dec/99. Assessment Report #094056 by B. Kreft.

GORDEY, S.P. and MAKEPEACE, A.J., 1999. Yukon digital geology, S.P. Gordey and A.J. Makepeace (comp.); Geological Survery of Canada, Open file D3826 and Exploration and Geological Services Division, Yukon, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Open File 1999-1(D).

YUKON EXPLORATION 1984, p. 143.