Work History

Originally staked as Treva cl (4612) in Jul/00. The North Star, Black Diamond, etc cl (4637) were staked on a bluff across the river from February to Apr/01 by J. McGillivray and C.J. Hahneman, who drove a 4.6 m adit later that year.
Canadian United Minerals Inc staked Cathy cl 1-22 (YC13111) 1.5 km to the southwest in Mar/99 and carried out prospecting and geochemical silt and rock sampling in Sep/99. The company carried out contour soil geochemical and silt sampling in 2000.
In Oct/2000, S. Ryan staked Cathy cl 23-28 (YC20464) on the west side of the Cathy 1-22 claims approximately 4.5 km to the southwest of this occurrence. Ryan carried out 1.5 days of hand trenching in 2001. Ryan allowed both groups of Cathy claims to expire, with the last claims expiring in Mar/2003.
Restaked as Cathy cl 1-14 (YC23672) in Apr/2003 by S. Ryan. The claims were staked south of the previous Cathy 1-22 claim block. Ryan carried out a regional soil sampling program over the area's ridge tops. In Apr/2004 Ryan staked Cathy cl 15-156 (YC30555) in a long rectangular block extending from an area located near the occurrence south past Mount Stewart. Later in the field season Ryan used a soil auger to collect soil samples from ridge tops running the length of the property. In late Sep/2005 Ryan soil sampled two areas located in the central portion of the claim block.
Ryan allowed Cathy cl 1-34 (YC20469 – covers occurrence), cl 73-88 (YC30613) and cl 121-136 (YC30661) to lapse in Apr/2006. Ryan conducted further soil sampling on the remaining claims in 2006 and 2007. In May/2007 Ryan optioned the neighbouring White Gold property (Minfile Occurrences 115O 011, 012, 013, 165, 166) to Underworld Resources Ltd. The company also optioned the surviving Cathy claims as part of this agreement. The actual occurrence was restaked as Cath cl 1-108 (YC75825) in Jul/2008 by S. Ryan as part of the White Gold property option.
In Jun/2009 B. Naughty staked AU cl 43-88 (YC98643) 4 km northeast of this occurrence. Naughty immediately optioned AU cl 63-64 (YC98663) and cl 70-88 (YC98670) to Ashburton Ventures Inc which commenced a geological mapping and soil sampling program in Jul/2009. In Sep/2009 the company carried out a trenching and follow up soil sampling program.
In 2009 Underworld Resources carried out ridge and spur soil sampling and reconnaissance geological mapping and rock sampling on the Cathy/Cath claim block.
In Mar/2010 Kinross Gold Corp announced a proposed acquisition of all shares of Underworld Resources with the aim of acquiring control of the White Gold deposit and Underworld’s various exploration properties located in the Dawson region of the Yukon (including the Cathy/Cath claims). In Apr/2006 Kinross announced its successful acquisition of 87% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Underworld Resources. Kinross immediately took steps to acquire the remaining shares of the company and on June 30, 2010 took Underworld Resources private resulting in Underworld Resources becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kinross.
As a privately held company Underworld is not required to release exploration results. According to Yukon Exploration and Geology 2010, Kinross spent $14 000 000 exploring on both the White Gold (including this occurrence) and JP Ross properties (Minfile Occurrence #115O 160) located approximately 23 km to the northeast. Property-wide geological mapping, airborne geophysical surveys, soil sampling survey and over 25 000 m of diamond drilling was completed on the two properties.

Capsule Geology

The geology of the Stewart River Area was remapped by J. Ryan and S. Gordey (2004) of the Geological Survey of Canada beginning in 2000 as a component of the Ancient Pacific Margin NATMAP Project. The NATMAP Project is a interagency project initiated by the Geological Survey of Canada, Yukon Geology Program (now Yukon Geological Survey) and British Columbia Geological Survey Branch to understand the composition, relationships and metallogenic of poorly understood pericratonic terranes lying between the ancestral North American margin and those known with more certainty to be tectonically accreted. The Stewart River component focuses on the Yukon-Tanana terrane, comprising complexly deformed mostly (?) Paleozoic meta-igneous and metasedimentary rocks. In 2005 S. Gordey and J. Ryan released a geological compilation map for the Stewart River area. The map units generally remained the same as the 2004 geology map but age dates were changed to reflect new dates obtained through geochronology data.
J. Ryan reported that the Stewart River area is underlain by twice-transposed, amphibolite-facies gneiss and schist of mostly (?) Paleozoic age. These are intruded by younger plutonic rocks (Jurassic, Cretaceous and Eocene) and overlain by upper Cretaceous volcanic rocks. Metasiliclastic rocks are widespread and dominated by psammite and quartzite, with lesser pelite and rare conglomerate. Preliminary detrital zircon geochronology and geochronology for plutonic rocks constrain the siliclastic rocks to the Middle Paleozoic. Amphibolite interdigitates with and stratigraphically overlies the siliclastic rocks. Marble horizons ((?) reefs) occurs within the amphibolite and siliclastic rocks. Orthogneissic rocks with diorite, tonalite and granodiorite protoliths intrude both the siliclastic and amphibole assemblages; it is interpreted as a subvolcanic intrusive complex.
The occurrence area is underlain by Devonian to Mississippian quartz-mica schist. To the west broadly contemporaneous amphibolite interdigitates with and lies structurally (and possibly stratigraphically) above the schist. Extensive orthogneiss intrudes both units to the east. Activity in this area at the turn of the century was likely prompted by a report by the Department of the Interior of an extensive ledge of gold-bearing quartz located "on the westerly side of the Yukon River, 2 miles (3.2 km) above the Stewart River". The location of the mineralization has never been located or confirmed.
Prospecting and sampling by Canadian United and S. Ryan between 1999 and 2001 identified an anomalous gold value (135 ppb) in a creek draining the area, as well as "quartz breccia" in float containing chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. Two samples of float material returned 12.8 ppm silver, 1 599 ppm copper, 114 ppm zinc, 3 406 ppm arsenic with 59 ppm antimony and 2.8 ppm silver, 98 ppm copper, 3 810 ppm zinc, 2 840 ppm arsenic and 26 ppm antimony, respectively.
Follow-up prospecting in 2001 successfully traced the float upstream, where trenching revealed a steeply dipping, northeast trending quartz breccia body approximately 0.5 m wide that has been traced for up to 8 m along strike to the northeast before being lost in overburden. Soil sampling carried out in 2003 on Cathy cl 1-14 outlined an arsenic, antimony and nickel anomaly at the eastern end of the claim block.
Between 2004 and 2008 Ryan continued soil sampling his claims as money and time allowed. In 2009 following the acquisition of the Cathy/Cath claims by Underworld Resources, the company compiled all of Ryan’s previous results and under took a large grid based and ridge and spur soil sampling program. The results of this program are outlined in Underworld’s 2010 National Instrument 43-101 report. The report records a large gold anomaly over the Cathy/Cath claims that appears lower in grade than other anomalies outlined on the neighbouring White claims located immediately to the south. Since its take-over of Underworld Resources, Kinross Gold has not publicly released any detailed results from the White Gold project.
Ashburton Ventures’ original soil survey was reconnaissance in nature with samples collected every 50 m on lines spaced 300 m apart. Multiple gold soil anomalies, apparently paralleling the mapped geology were detected on three adjacent soil lines with values ranging up to 90 ppb gold. The follow-up survey tripled the sampling density to 50 m centres on lines spaced 100 m apart in areas of the earlier anomalies. The in-fill sampling detected several new anomalies ranging up to 95 and 150 ppb gold across most of the 10 parallel in-fill lines and cover approximately 1 100 m of northerly slope. Individual lines possess gold anomalies across as much as 150 m of sampling, suggesting that multiple structures may be responsible for the anomalies.

References

ASHBURTON VENTURES INC, News Release. 18 Jun/2009, 22 Jul/2009,17 Sep/2009, 7 Jan/2010, 8 Sep/2010.

ASHBURTON VENTURES INC, June/2011. Web Site: www.ashburtonventures.com.

CANADIAN UNITED MINERALS INC, Sep/2000. Assessment Report #094152 by S. Ryan.

CANADIAN UNITED MINERALS INC, Sep/2001. Assessment Report #094281 by S. Ryan.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, Annual Report 1889, Part 8. Reprinted in: Information respecting the Yukon district from the reports of Wm. Ogilvie, Dominion land surveyor and from other sources. Department of the Interior, 1897, p. 38.

GORDEY, S.P. and MAKEPEACE, A.J., 2003. Yukon Digital Geology, version 2.0, S.P Gordey and A.J. Makepeace (comp); Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 1749 and Yukon Geological Survey, Open File 2003-9(D).

GORDEY, S.P. AND RYAN, J.J. 2005. Geology, Stewart River Area (115N, 115 O and part of 115J), Yukon Territory; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 4970, scale 1:250 000.

KINROSS GOLD CORP., May/2011. Web Site: www.kinross.com.

RYAN, J.J. AND GORDEY, S.P., 2002: Bedrock geology of Yukon-Tanana terrane in southern Stewart River map area, Yukon Territory; Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research 2002-A1, 11 p.

Ryan, J.J. ET AL., 2003: Update on bedrock geological mapping of the Yukon-Tanana terrane, southern Stewart River map area, Yukon Territory; Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research 2003-A9, 7 p.

Ryan, J.J. AND GORDEY, S.P., 2004; Geology Stewart River Area (Parts of 115N/1,2,7,8 and 115O/2- 12), Yukon Territory; Geological Survey of Canada, Open file 4641, scale 1:100 000.

RYAN, S., Apr/2002. Assessment Report #094339 by S. Ryan.

RYAN, S., Oct/2004. Assessment Report #094487 by S. Ryan.

RYAN, S., Oct/2005. Assessment Report #094674 by S. Ryan.

RYAN, S., Oct/2006. Assessment Report #094728 by S. Ryan.

RYAN, S., Oct/2007. Assessment Report #094819 by S. Ryan.

RYAN, S., Oct/2008. Assessment Report #095049 by S. Ryan.

SRK CONSULTING (CANADA) INC. Mar/2010. White Gold Property, Dawson Range, Yukon, Canada. By L Weirshauser, M Nowark and W. Barnett. (Project Number 2CU003.000).

UNDERWORLD RESOURCES LTD, Jun/2010. Assessment Report #095338 by H.K. Paulsen.

UNDERWORLD RESOURCES LTD, Nov/2009. Web Site: www.underworldresources.com.

YUKON EXPLORATION AND GEOLOGY 2010, p. 26, 61, 65.