The Black Bear East (South Zone) occurrence is located on a ridge, west of Spanish Creek and approximately 3.5 kilometres north-northeast of the creek mouth on Spanish Lake.
The area lies within the eastern part of the Quesnellia terrane. This region is underlain dominantly by fine-grained metasedimentary rocks, which are in contact with the Barkerville terrane. The metasedimentary rocks comprise mainly dark- grey phyllite and silty slate considered to be of the Middle to Upper Triassic. Part of the black phyllite succession is informally correlated with the Nicola Group but has also been informally referred to as the Quesnel River Group sediments. Serpentinite ultramafic rocks of the Upper Paleozoic Crooked Amphibolite are exposed to the north and west.
Locally, black shale or phyllite hosts mineralized quartz veins. In 2016, two samples (1920 and 1971) yielded 11.96 and 10.24 grams per tonne gold, respectively (Assessment Report 36462). Other samples (1906 and 1907) from the area yielded values of 3650 and 2351 grams per tonne silver, 20.54 and 16.79 per cent lead and up to 0.500 per cent copper and 0.517 per cent molybdenum (Assessment Report 36462).
Work History
During 2000 through 2008, Golden Cariboo Resources Ltd. completed programs of prospecting, geological mapping, geochemical (rock, soil, moss and stream sediment) sampling, ground magnetic and self potential surveys, trenching and 60 diamond drill holes, totalling 28,710.0 metres on the area as the Golden Cariboo property. A complete summary of exploration programs can be found at the Cariboo Hudson (MINFILE 093A 091) occurrence.
In 2015 and 2016, the area was prospected and rock samples were taken by Barker Minerals as the Black Bear East property.