The ROUCHON CREEK placer occurrence is located on Rouchon Creek, south of its confluence with Tregillus Creek, a tributary of Willow River. The old placer workings are situated approximately 20 kilometres west-northwest of the community of Wells.
Placer gold deposits of the Quesnel Highland region, including the former rich producers of the Barkerville camp, have accounted for a large proportion of British Columbia's alluvial gold production. With the exception of a few producers in the Wingdam area, which are underlain by Upper Triassic sediments correlative with the Nicola Group, almost all the deposits are underlain by the Upper Proterozoic to Lower Paleozoic Snowshoe Group. These rocks have been metamorphosed to greenschist facies and are predominantly metasedimentary.
Placer gold deposits in the region are generally found in relatively young Pleistocene gravels. The morphology and mineral associations of the gold suggests that it was derived locally, the most obvious sources are the numerous auriferous veins in the Downey succession of the Snowshoe Group.
Most of the placer gold production from Rouchon Creek has been from workings in the stream bed. The 1954 annual report states that 8000 cubic yards were hydraulically mined producing some 3, 394 ounces of placer gold up to 1945. These workings apparently extended for about 1,200 metres upstream from the mouth of the creek. Attempts were made to locate an old channel, particularly along Larsen Gulch, but it is not known if they were successful.
"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).
In 2022, M. Jones conducted a 3-line, 1 kilometre passive seismic survey over the Rouchon Creek occurrence area with the objective of detecting a potential paleochannel. The survey succeeded in highlighting deep areas in the bedrock with anomalous changes on all lines indicating a potential buried channel.
