The PDL occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1000 metres on a very steep west-facing slope in the northern headwaters of Keremeos Creek.
The area lies along the western margin of a fault-bound basin of Eocene Penticton Group volcanic rocks. To the west, the property is underlain by the Carboniferous to Triassic Shoemaker Formation, consisting mainly of blue-grey chert, minor limestone and greenstone that have been intruded by pyroxenite, hornblendite and serpentinite. Silicification is widespread in greenstone. The contact between chert and greenstone is gradational over widths of up to 10 metres. Bedding strikes northeast with moderate to steep dips to the southeast. The Springbrook Formation lies to the east, at the base of the Penticton Group volcanic succession, and consists of massive, unsorted, polymictic conglomerate and breccia with lesser sandstone and tuff. The matrix of the conglomerate and breccia is silty and green. Clasts are dominantly volcanics (45 per cent) and chert (35 per cent) with lesser metamorphic rocks (10 per cent), sediments (5 per cent) and intrusions (5 per cent). This is overlain by trachyandesite and andesite flows with conspicuous glomerophenocrystic clots of feldspar of the Kitley Lake member. Highly vesicular, pyroxene-rich basaltic andesite of the Kearns Creek member overlies the Kitley Lake member. Several north-trending faults also cut through the area.
Locally, gold values occur in a number of east-trending, very small pyrite-arsenopyrite quartz stringers in chert breccias of the Shoemaker Formation. The stringers are less than 5 centimetres wide.
Another area of mineralization, located approximately 700 metres south of previous zone, comprises a 10-metre-long adit and a trench that have exposed small, discontinuous massive sulphide lenses of copper-gold–bearing pyroxene-garnet skarn hosting massive to semi-massive pyrite and pyrrhotite with lesser chalcopyrite and bornite. One of the lenses has been traced over 20 metres and is 5 to 10 metres thick.
In 1987, a grab sample (PDL-556) of pyrite-arsenopyrite stringers assayed 31.3 grams per tonne gold, 22.5 grams per tonne silver, 0.25 per cent copper, 0.14 per cent lead, 0.57 per cent zinc and 3.74 per cent arsenic, whereas samples from trench 1 exposing a massive sulphide-skarn lens yielded values up to 0.49 gram per tonne gold and 0.15 per cent copper (Assessment Report 16674).
In 2020, a chip sample (A0866131) of massive sulphide skarn assayed 0.43 gram per tonne gold and 0.17 per cent copper over 3 metres (Green, D. [2020-10-23]: NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Green Mountain Property).
Work History
A short adit at the base of some cliffs on the PDL claim is evidence of previous property exploration (circa 1930), but no published record exists. There is also evidence of diamond drilling in the adit. Several bulldozer trenches were found above the adit and cliffs and are believed to have been excavated around 1971.
The PDL claim was staked by Placer Dome Development Ltd. in 1983. This was followed by property exploration in 1984 and 1985. The property was optioned to QPX Minerals Inc. in 1987. In 1988 and 1989, QPX Minerals Inc. conducted a comprehensive exploration program on the PDL and Astro claims. Five reverse-circulation drill holes, totalling approximately 250 metres, and five trenches, totalling 150 metres, were completed in the new showing area on the Astro 34 (MINFILE PDL 082ESW190) claim. Magnetometry and very low frequency electromagnetic surveys on 25- to 50-metre–spaced lines were completed over a 400- by 400-metre area. Three very well-defined conductive lineaments with corresponding magnetic lows were identified; only a small (50- by 100-metre) portion of one of these anomalies was tested by trenching and/or drilling. See PDL (082ESW190) for work on the PDL Property in 2014 and 2015.
In 2020, Level 14 Ventures Ltd. completed a program of prospecting, geological mapping and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the area immediately west of the occurrence as the Green Mountain property.
