The Black Creek placer gold deposit is located on Black Creek about 20 kilometres east of Horsefly, British Columbia. The deposit consists of layered, unconsolidated, reworked glaciofluvial gravel and sand. The material contains abundant kyanite, schist fragments, garnet and quartz grains. Typical of most Horsefly area placers, magnetite is present only in small quantities. The medium to coarse grain size is probably due to addition of magnetite from quartz diorite on Horsefly Mountain, at the headwaters of Black Creek.
The glaciofluvial deposits rest on a bedrock of augite porphyry basalt flows, flow breccias and underlying bedded pyroxene-rich wackes and siltstones of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group. Grey clays overlie these rocks. The clay has been cut by later, now filled, river channels which crosscut one another in a complex network. No gold is found in this clay. Gold occurs in the lower, coarse gravel channels. Exact determination of pay channels have not been made so the total area extent of gold deposition is vague.
The Black Creek placer deposit was discovered in the late 1890s by Mr. Campbell. The property was purchased by Harold Armes sometime prior to 1920 and was worked intermittently through to 1986 by Mr. Armes and his family. In 1986, the property was acquired by Mr. L. Shunter who has worked the claim steadily through 1988. A total of 1928 grams gold production has been recorded, however, these records are not complete (Bulletin 28).
"Data from the Cariboo mining district indicate that supergene leaching of gold dispersed within massive sulphides by Tertiary deep weathering followed by Cenozoic erosion is the most likely explanation for the occurrence of coarse gold nuggets in Quaternary sediments" (Exploration in British Columbia 1989, page 147).