The Crescent vein is at the head of Laughton (Eight-Mile) Creek, which is on the east flank of Silver Cup Ridge and drains into Trout Lake. The precise location of the original tenure is uncertain but it must be part of the Black Pine Group, which includes the I.X.L. (L.4727), I.X.L. Fraction (L.6469) and Black Pine claim. Most of the workings are probably on the I.X.L. claim.
The Crescent group of tenures includes a vein that was explored and developed by Mansfield Mining Company in the late 1910s and early 1920s. There are several open cuts and a 5.5 metres deep shaft that exposes a quartz vein. There is also a crosscut below the principal showing that was driven to tap the vein below the shaft. It was reached at a depth of 22.9 metres below surface. The I.X.L. and No. 3 are in the same basin as the Crescent but were evidently partly caved by 1918. In 1950, there were a series of showings on the rim of a cirque on Laughton Creek that were, at that time, known as the Black Pine prospect but were on the I.X.L. claims.
Shangri-La Minerals Limited conducted an airborne magnetometer and VLF-EM survey of the property in the late 1980s and Skyworld Resources and Development Limited acquired a 50 percent interest in the Cat claims, which surround the I.X.L. (L.4727), and I.X.L. Fraction (L.6469) claims, in 1987. It drilled three diamond drill holes to test the structure at depth.
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 Crescent area covers a section through the Lardeau Group that includes two bands of green phyllite of the Broadview Formation that are separated by a narrow band of mafic volcanic rocks of the Jowett Formation. The rocks are highly deformed and schistose. They display the regional northwest-trending strike and moderate to steep easterly dip found throughout the Silver Cup area.
There are several open cuts on the property and a shaft that exposes a narrow quartz vein in brown schist. The vein is 0.3 metre wide and contains a small showing of galena that carries "fair" silver values. In 1949, McDougall (Report on the Winslow Group and Associated Properties and Spider Mine) described a shaft sunk on a strong quartz-sulphide vein that is from 0.91 to 1.52 metres wide and is highly discordant to stratigraphy. It strikes 055 but is of unknown dip. The vein is said to be traceable, in both directions from the shaft for a total distance of in excess of 914 metres. Three "grab" samples collected by McDougall assayed 0.14 grams per tonne, 3.43 grams per tonne and 4.80 grams per tonne gold and 92.6 grams per tonne, 24.0 grams per tonne and 37.71 grams per tonne silver respectively. In 1987, Skyworld drilled three diamond drill holes "to test the structure at depth, in a large area (where) patchy and disseminated sulphide, chiefly pyrite,where minor galena and sphalerite have been recognized".
