The Tin Cup occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 600 metres on the north side of Spapilem Creek, approximately 200 metres downstream of the first set of falls above Adams Lake.
Regionally, the area is located near the contact between the mid-Cretaceous Baldy Batholith, the Upper Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian Graffunder Lakes unit and a late Devonian orthogneiss unit, all of the Eagle Bay Assemblage. The Eagle Bay Assemblage comprises a series of low-grade metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks, including micaceous quartzite, grit, phyllite, and quartz mica schist, accompanied by minor amounts of chlorite schist, limestone, calcareous phyllite, calc-silicate schist, and amphibolite.
Locally, an approximately 5- by 20-metre quartz lens with minor sulphides (galena?) crosscuts interbedded phyllites and quartzites. The lens strikes 290 degrees and plunges –60 degrees north.
In 1986, a sample (18203) from the mineralized lens yielded 17.8 grams per tonne silver and 0.23 per cent lead (Assessment Report 15017).
Work History
Placer gold is reported to have been mined from creek gravels of Spapilum Creek between the first falls on the creek and Adams Lake. No production records are known.
During 1984 through 1986, programs of prospecting, geological mapping, geochemical (rock, silt, and soil) sampling and a ground magnetic survey were completed on the area as the Tin Cup claim.