The Erie Creek showing is situated across from Rest Creek along the north side of a small, unnamed tributary of Erie Creek, approximately 300 metres south of Erie Creek, on the slopes of Erie Mountain and approximately 3 kilometres west of Salmo.
The area is underlain by Early Jurassic Rossland Group rocks intruded by phases of the Middle Jurassic Nelson Batholithic Suite. Within the Rossland Group, the Archibald Formation, a sequence of fine to coarse sediments, is overlain by the volcanic rocks of the Elise Formation and the mainly fine-grained clastic rocks of the Hall Formation. The Archibald Formation ranges from interlayered argillites and siltstones (exposed at the Maybee vein) to dark, laminated rusty argillites interlayered with occasional augite phyric flows marking a gradational contact with the overlying Elise Formation. The Elise Formation is subdivided into a basal unit of mafic flows and flow breccias overlain by a thick accumulation of intermediate pyroclastic rocks. To the south, exposures of the Lower Elise contain massive augite-phyric flows, flow breccias and heterolithic to mafic clast-dominated volcaniclastics interbedded with well-layered, mafic water-lain tuff beds. To the north, the Elise is dominated by well-layered fine to lapilli tuffs interlayered with dark graphitic argillite and dark grey argillaceous siltstone.
To the west, the southern edge of the Bonnington Batholith, part of the Nelson Plutonic Suite, is exposed, as is a small granitic stock in the valley to the south. Exposures of the Bonnington Batholith consist of potassium-feldspar porphyritic to locally massive granodiorite cut by felsic dikes.
Several generations of faulting have been recognized in the area. North-trending, east-verging thrust faults occurring to the south and southeast are cut by Cretaceous and Middle Jurassic plutons. Parallel, north-northeast–trending faults occurring to the south cut earlier folds and are cut and sealed by Jurassic plutons. Steeply dipping, northwest-trending extensional faults running through the centre of the Sadarsa property cut both earlier structures and Jurassic plutons.
The area of the Erie Creek showing is dominated by volcanics of the Elise Formation, which are intruded by granitic, dioritic and alkalic rocks of the Nelson Plutonic Suite. Crystal and ash flow tuffs are interlayered with andesitic flows and have an apparent east-northeast trend.
The Erie Creek showing is marked by two historic adits and a shaft. The historic adit located in 1983 was driven into a zone of sheared black argillite and trends 340 degrees. At the site of the workings, the argillite strikes 145 degrees and dips 45 degrees west. As of 1983, the workings were caved and full of water. The two adits located in 1990 were driven into sheared black argillite. The visible shear contains gouge and local pods of quartz-carbonate, ranges from 20 to 30 centimetres in width and occurs within a 1.8-metre-wide zone of broken rock. Sulphides occur as up to 1 per cent of the rock content and are noted to contain pyrrhotite.
Rock samples collected from the tailings pile in 1983 consisted of sheared and banded graphitic argillite with disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite and fine-grained diorite with blebs and streaks of pyrrhotite. Grab samples collected from the shear zone at the same time consisted of rusty, calcareous argillite.
Measurements of main fractures included striking 65 degrees and dipping 40 degrees west, striking 90 degrees and dipping 26 degrees west, striking 170 degrees and dipping 45 degrees west and striking 50 degrees and dipping 44 degrees west.
Prior to 1902, the Transvaal and Zambesi Mining Company conducted development work on the Armstrong claim group (MINFILE 082FSW267), consisting of the Armstrong, Erie and Black Knight claims, to the southwest of the Erie Creek showing. The property was dormant from 1902 until 1928, when the claims were acquired by S.E. Coulter and P. Coulter. The old tunnels were cleaned out and the trail to the property was opened up. The workings, situated on the Black Knight claim, consisted of open-cuts and four tunnels. The tunnels developed four widely separated silicified fractured zones in granite.
In 1978 and 1979, Salmet Resources Corporation staked the Dan, Dan 2 and Dan 3 claims over the southern half of the modern Sadarsa property. The claims were held as part of the Silverhorn property. In 1980, Salmet Resources conducted a program of geochemical sampling, geophysical surveying and trenching on the Silverhorn claims to the immediate east.
The first record of exploration on the Sadarsa property was in 1981 on the Key claim to the west of the Dan and Armstrong claim groups. The Key claim covered an area containing the Meadows occurrence (MINFILE 082FSW268). Rick Wierzbicki carried out a limited molybdenum exploration program on the property, collecting two geochemical samples.
Prior to 1983, no record of work exists for the Erie Creek showing; however, the existence of scattered historic pits and holes has been noted in the area of the showing. In 1983, Taiga Consultants Limited, on behalf of Rex Silver Mines Limited, conducted reconnaissance mapping, prospecting, sampling, soil geochemistry and ground geophysical surveying on the ORC claims to the north. The location of a historic adit and shaft marked the discovery of the Erie Creek showing, from which five samples were collected.
In 1989, a very low-frequency electromagnetic geophysical ground survey was conducted over the DC, Bear and Poogy claims to the immediate west of the historic Armstrong claim group (MINFILE 082FSW267). Following this survey, between 1989 and 1990, a program of soil and rock sampling and geophysical surveying was completed.
In 1989, the northeastern portion of the modern Sadarsa property was staked as the Erie Creek property. Between 1989 and 1990, Desert Gold Resources Incorporated conducted an exploration program of geological mapping, geophysical surveying and soil, silt and rock geochemistry on the Erie Creek claim group. In 1990, two historic adits marking the Erie Creek showing and appearing to have been dug around the turn of the century were located next to a rotted cabin foundation. Within the immediate vicinity of the Erie Creek showing, two silt samples, eight rock samples and 44 soil samples were collected and 2 line kilometres of ground geophysical surveying were completed.
In 1990, a program of prospecting, mapping, showing and outcrop sampling and geophysical surveying was completed on the Shamrock claim group by claim owners R. Bourdon and C. Pittman. A total of 29 samples were collected in the immediate vicinity of the Shamrock and Maybee veins.
Also in 1990, R. Jordan conducted a mapping and prospecting traverse across the Sherman claim to the west of the Shamrock zone and immediately east of the Armstrong claim group (MINFILE 082FSW267). The following year, Jordan followed up the mapping and prospecting program by collecting 23 soil samples on the Sherman claim and 35 samples on the RR claim to the south of the Erie Creek showing.
In 2007, D. Lavoie staked the Sadarsa claim group. That same year, prospector Tom Kennedy conducted a small rock geochemistry program on the property, collecting 42 rock samples. As a follow-up to the rock sampling program, Robert Klewchuk Limited was commissioned to conduct a soil sampling program on the property in 2008. Samples were collected over two grids—one to the southwest of the Erie Creek showing in the northern portion of the property and the other slightly north of and between the Meadows (MINFILE 082FSW268) and Shamrock occurrences in the southwestern portion of the property. Between 2009 and 2010, Kennedy conducted another rock geochemistry program, collecting 22 samples from the southeastern corner of the property. Later in 2010, an additional nine samples were collected from the southwestern corner of the property.
In 2011, Trygve Hoy, on behalf of Kootenay Gold Incorporated (also referred to as Kootenay Silver Incorporated), conducted a short program of geological mapping and sampling on the property. That same year, Tom Kennedy collected 65 rock samples across the southern portion of the Sadarsa property. In 2012, Kennedy carried out a 34-sample rock geochemistry program over the Shamrock zone to the south.
Grab samples collected from the adit and tailings in 1983 returned 0.2 to 0.48 gram per tonne silver and less than 0.01 gram per tonne gold. A silt sample collected from the area drainage returned 0.372 gram per tonne gold and 0.34 gram per tonne silver (Assessment Report 11542, page 25).
Rock samples collected in 1989 returned values ranging from 0.002 to 0.021 gram per tonne gold and 1.1 to 1.9 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 20160, page 37).
