The Battlement (Quartz Breccia zone) occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 2150 metres on a north-northwest–facing slope, south of Battlement Creek and approximately 3.4 kilometres northeast of the creek’s junction with the Taseko River.

The area is underlain by undivided sedimentary rocks of the Upper Cretaceous Powell Creek Formation, which have been intruded by Late Cretaceous to Eocene dioritic rocks.

Locally, as defined by diamond drilling, silicified lapilli tuffs, agglomerates and altered volcanics are separated from a massive pyrite-bearing unit by a fault zone. This latter unit is reported as a vuggy and laminated chalcedonic silica-rich unit (epithermal polymetallic vein-breccia style mineralization), with variable barite, kaolinite and pyrite. Below the previous units, drilling intercepted a silicified and weakly pyritic conglomerate with ovoids of sphalerite.

Work History

In 1986, Esso Minerals completed two drillholes, totalling 435.66 metres, on the area. Drilling yielded intercepts including 0.33 and 0.12 per cent copper, 1.2 and 91.8 grams per tonne silver with 0.025 and 0.002 gram per tonne gold over 32.72 and 24.00 metres, respectively, in hole 86-02 (Rebagliati, C.M., Titley, E. [2020-05-29]: Technical Report Summarizing Exploration Work on the IKE Cu-Mo-Au-Ag Project, British Columbia, Canada). The following year, Westmin completed a single drillhole totalling 249.02 metres.

In 2007, Galore Resources completed four diamond drill holes, totalling 347.56 metres, on the area. Drillhole 07-03BA yielded 0.18 per cent copper, 20.9 grams per tonne silver and 0.017 gram per tonne gold over 20.70 metres, including 0.24 per cent copper, 41 grams per tonne silver and 0.020 gram per tonne gold over 6.10 metres (Rebagliati, C.M., Titley, E. [2020-05-29]: Technical Report Summarizing Exploration Work on the IKE Cu-Mo-Au-Ag Project, British Columbia, Canada).