The Copper Queen prospect is on the crest of Silver Cup Ridge midway between Le Beau and Copper Queen Creeks, both of which flow to the southwest into Trout Lake. It is 2.4 kilometres northwest of the Winslow [082KNW025] occurrence. The Copper Queen (L.6477) tenure adjoins the Parkside (L.7041) and Tom Edward (L.6478). All three are stacked from north to south.
There is very little known about the occurrence, although a considerable amount of work was done on surface and a 15.24 metres long tunnel was driven on the vein in 1904. There was also a shaft on site by 1914. Skyworld Resources and Development Limited acquired a 50 percent interest in the property in 1988, and prospected the area.
The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.
The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.
The Copper Queen claim is underlain by grey, gritty, schists and phyllites of the Broadview Formation. These rocks are highly deformed and schistose. They display the regional northwest-trending strike and moderate to steep northeasterly dip found elsewhere on Silver Cup Ridge.
Skyworld Resources and Development Limited describes the prospect as being a north-trending, steeply dipping pyritic quartz vein that has a narrow band of sulphide on its hanging wall side. The mineralized band appears to have been the source of dump material that gave "best results" of 25.37 grams per tonne gold and 596.6 grams per tonne silver.
