The Franz occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1285 metres on a northwest-facing slope, east of the Coldwater River and approximately 1.4 kilometres west-southwest of Shovelnose Mountain.

The area is underlain by Nicola Group intermediate volcanics and minor intrusives; Spences Bridge Group andesite flows, volcaniclastics, crystal lithic tuffs and rhyolite flows; and Princeton Group basalt flows. Cretaceous rhyolite flows form a cover sequence. Normal faulting along the north-northeast– and northwest–trending structures offset the Nicola and Spences Bridge Group rocks.

Locally, an 80- by 20-metre area of rhyolite outcrop hosts quartz veining, orientated at 110/290 degrees, with gold and silver values.

In 2020, two outcrop grab samples (V074705 and V074706) assayed 51.1 and 4.2 grams per tonne gold with 165.0 and 52.5 grams per tonne silver, respectively, whereas drillholes SN20-101 and SN20-108 yielded 14.84 and 2.07 grams per tonne gold with 40.7 and 16.5 grams per tonne silver over 7.8 and 34.1 metres, respectively (Laird, B.L. [2021-02-07]: National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report on the Spences Bridge Group of Properties (SBG Group), Nicola and Kamloops Mining Divisions, British Columbia).

Work History

The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby MIK (MINFILE 092HNE309) occurrence and a complete regional exploration history can be found there. The occurrence was discovered in 2020.