The Tahtsa Range (Saddle) occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1800 metres on a north-northeast-south-southwest–trending ridge saddle, approximately 6.8 kilometres south of Mount Ney.

The area is underlain by andesitic volcanic rocks of the Cretaceous Kasalka Group and undivided sedimentary rocks of the Lower Cretaceous Skeena Group, which have been intruded by granodioritic rocks of the Eocene Boundary stock.

Locally at the Saddle zone, a trench has exposed narrow quartz stringers and fractures containing pyrite, chalcopyrite, silver-bearing galena and hematite in silicified and pyritized quartz diorite that is adjacent to Jurassic Hazelton Group rocks. The stringers are 5 to 7.6 centimetres wide and are discontinuous. Tourmaline occurs as a minor constituent of the quartz veins. The stringers trend 040 degrees and dip vertically.

A second zone of mineralization, referred to as the South zone, is located approximately 1.5 kilometres south-southwest of the Saddle zone.

Work History

In 1982, trenching on the Saddle zone, located several hundred metres west of the Tahtsa Range (Glory) occurrence, is reported to have yielded up to 12 000 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 13703).

In 1984, Ryan Exploration Co. Ltd. completed a geological mapping and rock sampling program on the area as the Smokey Pines 1 claim. Five samples (25246 to 25250) of trenched boulders from the Saddle zone yielded an average of 4589 grams per tonne silver, 0.52 gram per tonne gold, 0.71 per cent copper, 1.61 per cent lead and 3.10 per cent zinc, whereas a nearby in-situ sample (41397) of epidote-pyrite-chalcopyrite veinlets assayed 0.56 per cent copper, 47.3 grams per tonne silver and 0.77 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 13703). Also at this time, a sample (40315) from a gossanous, pyritized, silicified quartz-diorite plug, located approximately 1.5 kilometres south-southwest of the Saddle zone, yielded 36.5 grams per tonne silver, 0.50 gram per tonne gold and 0.20 per cent zinc, whereas a sample of (42906) sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and pyrite, taken approximately 900 metres to the northwest of the Saddle zone, yielded values of up to 1.2 per cent copper, 1.8 per cent zinc and 269 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 13703).

During 2015 through 2017, Equity Exploration completed programs of prospecting, geological mapping and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the area as part of the Berg property. In 2015, sampling of the Saddle zone yielded values up to 13 140 grams per tonne silver, 1.04 per cent copper, 6.20 per cent zinc and greater than 20.0 per cent lead (Tetra Tech Canada Inc. [2021-05-03]: Updated Technical Report and Mineral Resource Estimate on the Berg Project, British Columbia).