Exploration History

Staked as Hart cl (87406) in May/66 by L. Proctor; as Pal cl 1-16 (Yl5890) in Apr/69 by Klondike Exploration Ltd; and as Hart cl 1-8 (Y65838) in Jan/73 by Silver Standard Mines Ltd, which carried out geological mapping and geochemical sampling later in the year.

Restaked as Ma cl 1-4 (YA89555) in Jul/87 by S. Ridgeway, who transferred the claims to Walhalla Exploration Ltd in May/89.

Restaked as Monica cl 1-10 (YC04655) in Sep/97 by A. Rudis, who formed an informal partnership with R. Nordling. The pair carried out geochemical sampling in 1998 and 1999. Rudis staked Ax cl 1-12 (YC13379) 7 km south and Al cl 1-22 (YC13391) 5 km south in Apr/99. In Oct/99 R. Nordling staked Nic cl 1-4 (YC20926) 7.5 km to the southwest.

In Aug/2000 Nordling staked Tim cl 1-2 (YC20309) and Sha cl 1-4 (YC20311) 2 km southwest and added Nic cl 5-6 (YC20926) and cl 9-14 (YC20928) to their holdings. Following the completion of staking, the partners carried out magnetic geophysical surveys over the Monica, Nic, Sha, Tim and Al claims and collected numerous soil, silt and rock samples over their various claim holdings.

The Chant claims were staked in 2010 by S. Ryan and optioned to White Gold Corp. The Hart claims were staked in 2013 by White Gold.

Capsule Geology

The area surrounding this occurrence is underlain by Late Devonian to mid-Mississippian and older (?) metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks assigned to the Nasina Assemblage. These rocks are intruded by a large body of orthogneissic rocks derived from metaplutonic rocks. In some places the orthogneiss is merely strongly foliated, rather than truly gneissic. The exact age of these rocks is unknown, but Ryan and Gordey (2002, 2003) reported a earliest Mississippian age for orthogneissic rocks located in the southern half of the Stewart River map sheet.

The orthogneiss is overlain by a sequence of unmetamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rocks informally referred to as the Carmacks Group. The Carmacks Group is believed to range from Lower to Upper Cretaceous in age. Numerous granitic intrusions ranging from Cretaceous to Tertiary are also known to occur in the region.

Sampling in 1998 and 1999 by Rudis and Nordling produced two silt samples from Cheryl Creek (local name) that returned anomalous values for Au; the first from a small tributary just south of the Monica cl 6 (25 ppb Au) and the second just above the confluence with Fifty Mile Creek in the vicinity of Al cl 9 (58 ppb Au). Placer gold previously recovered from Cheryl Creek was largely coarse with a few pieces showing enclosed fragile cuprite crystals. This suggests that any gold present in the area has not traveled far from source.

A total magnetic field survey run along Cheryl Creek returned a semi-continuous magnetic anomaly which may define an old stream channel or a possible bedrock source. A second survey run across the Nic claims returned a semi-continuous magnetic anomaly over Line 2 of the survey which was theorized to represent either magnetite concentrations within the placer gravels and/or a bedrock source. Prospecting along Cheryl Creek returned highs of 214 ppm nickel, 150 ppm zinc and 24 ppb gold from various ultramafic and gneissic float samples. The ultramafic samples likely represent small dykes cutting across bedrock.