The Tsitika Grey sites are located 10 kilometres south of Woss on the Island Highway, 100-200 metres, north and south, on each side of the highway on logging roads.
The sites occur on the Tsitika or S90 property which lies within the Vernon Batholith, apart of the Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite. The batholith consists of homogeneous body of medium to coarse grained plutonic rocks ranging from biotite-hornblende quartz diorite to leuco-quartz monzonite.
The stone is found as scattered outcrops and boulder fields along the Island Highway west of the Tsitika River. It is fresh and boulders vary in size from 45 to 725 tonnes. There are no visible micro-fracture or exfoliation features. Rounded inclusions of darker facies rock are a common feature in the whole area.
The stone on the S90-1 claim outcrops in a natural bench and a series of massive to fractured ridges. Preliminary mapping was concentrated on the natural quarry bench.
Tsitika Grey is a fairly uniform, medium to coarse-grained quartz monzonite. The colour is medium grey with black peppering by coarse-grained mafic minerals. Major constituents are plagioclase, quartz, hornblende, biotite and orthoclase. Minor constituents are magnetite, apatite and clinozoisite. The mafic minerals are unaltered and feldspar has minor sericitization. The rock looks fresh with no alteration, fabric or staining on the polished face. It takes a good, bright polish (8/10) with rare pitting on biotite. Magnetite grain aggregates, up to 3 millimetres across, give a scattered metallic glint. Mafic knots are rare, small, less than 2 centimetres across, and consist of mats of hornblende, biotite and feldspar. No sulphides were noted in any samples, or on the weathered surfaces.
The stone is massive in outcrop and lies in a series of benches progressing up the hill toward a solid knob at the top. The nature of this exposure will facilitate significantly easier quarrying, as drilling will be minimized. The fracture pattern as evidenced in the series of benches is spaced close enough that master blocks in the order of 453 to 907 tonnes can be easily produced.
The 1994 exploration program consisted of preliminary prospecting and mapping, followed by a boulder testing program on one of the boulders on the S90-2 claim. Approximately 9 tonnes was cut into 25.8 centimetre squared split face granite, while approximately 544 tonnes was cut into 4.5-tonne blocks and sent to Vancouver for market testing. Approximately 18 tonnes and 27 tonnes have been used on two jobsites respectively (Assessment Report 23891).
The 1995 program consisted of further boulder testing on the S90 property, now 80 per cent complete. The presence of xenoliths confirmed to be a serious problem for the polished stone market, but split stone was favourably received by masons on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Three potential quarry sites were identified (Assessment Report 24251).
The 1996 program consisted of a small quarry bench being established to test the quarrying characteristics of the granite. The blocks quarried were reported to split well along grain, how ever the bench site was shown to be located on the up-dip side of sill fractures leading to pinching and jamming of blocks, resulting in excessive waste rock (Assessment Report 24876).
The 1998 program consisted of stockpiling and splitting of a number of 4.5 to 9.0 tonne boulders located on the north side of Highway 19. An approximate 40.8 tonnes of stone was shipped to a stone yard in Vancouver. This was later used for split stone and coping (Assessment Report 25801).
Tsitika Stone Industries operated the quarry during 1994 through 1998. The claims were allow to lapse in 2000. In 2004, Tarmac Management staked the area as the Southern 1, Sea Green 1, Worhtington 1 and Prefco 1 claims, apart of the Tsitika Granite property. In 2005, Tsitika Stone Industries completed a minor program of geological mapping and testing of a few boulders.
