Work History

Staked as claim 703 in June, 1895 by R. Matheson and W. Cornell, and restaked as Pyramid cl (1203) in May/01 by Ole Tweeden and Polly Copper cl (1206) in Oct/01 by D.F. Watson; as Metre Hill, etc cl (7037) in Feb/05 by J. Cameron who drove a 6 m adit later in the year; and as Ethelda Copper cl (10735) in Apr/08 by G.S. Richards.
Restaked as Road cl 1-4 (YA32570), Rail cl 1-4 (YA32574) and cl 5-166 (YA32666) and Track cl 1-28 (YA32570) between in June and Aug/79 by Noranda Exploration Company Ltd, which explored with geochemical and geophysical surveys in 1979, 1980 and 1981. The occurrence was explored in conjunction with Minfile Occurrence 116C 137 located 6 km to the north.
Nordac Resources Ltd staked River cl 1-10 (YB53090) 1 km to the southeast in Apr/95. The company acquired helicopter-borne geophysical data from a third party in May/95 and carried out a geochemical sampling and prospecting program in Aug/95.The company staked River cl 11-24 (YB54127) during the latter work program.

Capsule Geology

The area lies within the Klondike segment of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. Re-construction of movement along the Tintina Trench suggests that the Klondike segment is probably a direct along-strike continuation of the Finlayson Allochthon which contains the Kudz Ze Kayah (Minfile Occurrence 105G 117) and the Wolverine (Minfile Occurrence 105G 072) volcanic massive sulphide deposits.
The occurrence is underlain by Devonian to Mississippian Nasina Assemblage (formerly called Nasina Series) quartzite and quartz-muscovite-biotite schist and marble that have been intruded by the Mid-Cretaceous Mount Carmacks Pluton. Chalcopyrite occurs in narrow pyritic skarn horizons that have developed in limy beds within quartzite located near the contact of the granodiorite to quartz diorite intrusion.
The original showing was not located by Noranda during their 1980s work program and most of their exploration work was concentrated north and west of the occurrence.
Nordac staked the River claims to cover galena, sphalerite and pyrite occurrences discovered along the banks of the Yukon River by Dr. J.K. Mortensen during the course of regional geological mapping in 1986. Host rocks were reported to be siliceous quartz-muscovite schists of a Lower to Middle Paleozoic metavolcanic sequence, however recent developments suggest the host rocks are probably mid-Devonian or younger. Nordac reported concordant seams, layers and lenses of massive pyrite up to several centimeters thick near the lower contact of the metavolcanic unit with underlying marble and quartzite. Abundant float of this material was observed along the river bed downstream for over 1 km. Although Mortensen sampled pyrite mineralized with galena and sphalerite Nordac failed to locate his sample site. Reconnaissance soil samples collected across the property failed to return any anomalous values for Cu, Pb or Zn. Samples of pyritic float and bedrock returned weakly anomalous values for Cu, Pb and Zn.
The magnetic survey returned several spot magnetic highs while the EM survey identified several weak to moderate conductors which matched the prospective trend of the pyritic horizon.