The Ford occurrence is underlain by a roof pendant of the Upper Triassic Vancouver Group, Quatsino Formation limestone. This is overlain by Lower Jurassic Bonanza Group tuffs. The roof pendant is surrounded to the north, south and west by granodiorite and hornblende diorite of the Zeballos stock of the Early to Middle Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite.

The limestone and tuff are extensively recrystallized. Andesite dykes, considered to be intrusive phases of Bonanza volcanics, cut the tuffs and are most frequent at the southwest end of the occurrence. Feldspar porphyry dykes cut limestone and tuff.

The roof pendant is a recumbent overturned anticline that plunges southwest and opens to the southeast, exposing the limestone. Beds dip moderately to the northwest at surface but steeper at depth and are projected to overturn below the drilled depth.

A major northwest striking vertical fault, with a right lateral displacement of 31 to 61 metres, cuts the main orebody in half. A second parallel fault, 150 metres to the south, is post-ore and has little offset.

Mineralization consists of a 21-metre-thick tabular body of massive magnetite that strikes northeast and dips northwest. At the northeast end, it pinches out along the limestone-tuff contact. At the southwest end, 400 metres away, the magnetite fingers out in a migmatitic zone where the tuff is intruded by the Zeballos stock.

The magnetite follows the limestone-tuff contact down dip, but crosses the stratigraphy where the contact becomes vertical at depth. A thin layer of pyrite is present locally at the magnetite-limestone contact. Pyroxene-epidote skarn, with only minor garnet, occurs as an irregular 31 metre thick layer, 3 metres above the magnetite, forming generally sharp contacts. A second skarn band lies 61 metres above the first.

It has been suggested that magnetite replacement was partially controlled by fracturing (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1962, pages 100-103).

Most of the magnetite is pure, massive and fine-grained; but it commonly occurs as octahedral grains up to 1.3 centimetres across.

Work History

During 1962 and 1963 the deposit was mined by open pit methods. From 1963 to the end of production in 1969, underground methods were used. Between 1962 and 1969 the deposit produced 1,282,233,396 kilograms of iron concentrate from 1,681,283 tonnes mined.

In 2014, the area was prospected as the Zeballos Vancouver Island property.