The Babette Lake showing is located approximately 80 kilometres north of McBride and 1 kilometre west-northwest of Babette Lake. The showing is 15 kilometres west of the British Columbia-Alberta border, within the Cariboo Mining Division.
The region is underlain by an assemblage of sedimentary rocks consisting mainly of continental margin and shelf facies rocks. This assemblage was deposited on, and to the west of, the Ancestral North American craton. These sedimentary rocks, for the most part typical continental shelf and slope facies, range in age from Hadrynian to Upper Cretaceous. Structurally these rocks are part of the Foreland thrust and fold belt of the North American Cordillera.
The Babette Lake prospect is underlain by quartzite of the Mahto Formation of the lower Cambrian Gog Group. The formation, which is more than 213 metres thick, hosts high-quality building stone within various stratigraphic intervals. The high-quality intervals contain pink, purple, reddish, grey and white; thin-bedded to massive; occasionally speckled quartzite that is weakly to moderately fractured. Intervening poorer quality beds comprise white, grey, pink, purple or variably coloured; massive to thin-bedded; intensely to moderately fractured quartzite, which is commonly interbedded with shale or siltstone. Drilling perpendicular to bedding encountered six sections of the high-quality material at or near surface, ranging from 7.6 to 38.7 metres thick. Four sections are at least 18.3 metres thick.
Work History
In 1981, Babette Lake Quartzite Products Ltd. conducted 276 metres of drilling in three holes. A test quarry was developed on a similar occurrence (Wishaw Lake - MINFILE 093H 131) located several kilometres to the south, near Wishaw Lake.
In 1992, 25 rock samples were collected during a short property assessment visit to establish the extent and colour ranges of the quartzite, test whether conventional methods of rock cutting could be applied and assess the extent and quality of quartzite below the Mahto Formation. The author concluded that there is suitable quality and quantity of quartzite present for dimensional stone purposes (Assessment Report 22604).
