The Santana is located 2.2 kilometres northwest of Bold Point between Conville Bay and Main Lake on Quadra Island.
Mineralization was discovered at the Santana occurrence in 1916 or 1917. The owners conducted trenching and drove several adits. A shipment of hand-sorted ore was made in the vicinity of one of these adits and sent to A.S. & R. smelter in Tacoma. In 1929 and 1930 the property was controlled by Santana Copper Syndicate. Little work was reported. The property lay inactive until 1964 when surface work and diamond drilling was conducted by R. Renshaw. Four holes were drilled totalling 762 metres. Between 1987 and 1989, Lonsdale Capital Corporation had an option to earn 100 per cent interest in the Santana property.
The Santana occurrence lies approximately 6 to 7 kilometres east of the Insular tectonic belt and Coast Plutonic Complex boundary. Diorite and quartz diorite are the predominant intrusive compositions along the western edge of the Coast Plutonic Complex. Other intrusive phases include granodiorite, quartz monzonite and granite. The oldest rocks of the Insular tectonic belt are altered basaltic flows, breccia and tuffs with minor greywacke, argillite and chert of the Permian Sicker Group. These are overlain by basalt flows, porphyritic andesite agglomerate and tuffs of the Triassic Karmutsen Formation. The overlying Late Triassic to Early Jurassic Quatsino and Kunga formations are composed of limestone.
The Santana occurrence is underlain by two lithologies. To the west is quartz diorite which, in the east, is in contact with thinly interbedded grey limestone and calcareous shale of the Triassic Parson Bay Formation. The limestone and shale strike 180 degrees and dip 75 to 85 degrees to the west.
Mineralization occurs in a narrow zone of contact metamorphosed rocks along the limestone and quartz diorite contact, which is traceable along ground exposures for up to 600 metres length, along a northwest trend, and widths up to 12 metres. The granodiorite is faulted and fractured and has been described as having a "gneissic structure". The limestone is grey to bluish black in appearance. The metamorphosed limestone is dark brown, rusty, quite often heavily mineralized, in places broken and quartz-filled, rarely coarsely crystalline, and has the general appearance of a skarn.
Mineralization, in the form of chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite and pyrite, occurs in masses or short lenses. Malachite and azurite are noted as alteration minerals. Many rock samples taken in 1988 yielded anomalous copper, zinc and silver values (Assessment Report 17256). Sample 9606-002, taken in 1988, yielded 5.65 per cent copper, 0.41 per cent zinc and 69.60 grams per tonne silver. The sample was taken from a 5-centimetre wide quartz vein with chalcopyrite. Sample 9609-016 yielded 12.00 per cent copper, 0.44 per cent zinc and 1213.79 grams per tonne silver. The sample was taken from massive sulphides.
Recent property work has reported chalcopyrite as fine-grained disseminations to massive blebs to stockwork-type narrow veinlets with secondary silica within quartz diorite. The mineralization appeared to be structurally (shear?) controlled along the intrusive-limestone contact. Three samples were taken near the No. 1 adit. Sample 01454 yielded 0.94 per cent copper, 12.75 grams per tonne silver and 0.17 gram per tonne gold. The sample was a 1.8-metre chip across the centre zone above the No. 1 portal. Grab sample 01455 yielded 2.74 per cent copper, 7.20 grams per tonne silver and 0.34 gram per tonne gold. Grab sample 01456, from a series of sloughed trenches, yielded 3.92 per cent copper, 290.33 grams per tonne silver and 0.21 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 19037).
A shipment of 158.8 tonnes was made to the Granby smelter at Anyox in 1916, which produced 93 grams of gold, 14,370 grams of silver and 4779 kilograms of copper.