The Hansard occurrence is located on a ridge extending northwest along the south side of the old Highway 16, approximately 1.6 to 4 kilometres northwest of the railway crossing at Hansard.

Regionally, the area is underlain by limestone, slate, siltstone and argillite of the Lower Cambrian Gog Group and limestone, marble and calcareous sedimentary rocks of the Cambrian to Ordovician Kechika Group.

Locally, a body of limestone of the lower Cambrian Mural Formation (Gog Group) has been identified. The deposit consists of massive, fine- to medium-grained, light-grey to black, intensely fractured limestone. The limestone is intruded by a few dikes and cut by numerous white calcite veinlets.

A chip sample taken across 60 metres of limestone 1.76 kilometres northwest of the railway crossing contained 55.10per cent calcium oxide, 0.42 per cent magnesium oxide, 1.04 per cent insolubles, 0.26 per cent rare earth oxides, 0.10 per cent ferric oxide, 0.01 per cent manganese oxide, 0.01 per cent phosphorus pentoxide, 0.02 per cent sulphur and 43.38 per cent ignition loss (EMPR Annual Review 1957, p. 84).

In 2008, drilling on the Auto Ridge area yielded up to 95.97 per cent calcium carbonate with 1.13 per cent magnesium carbonate and 1.17 per cent silicon dioxide over 60.27 metres in hole HAN08-03 (Assessment Report 30712).

Work History

In the 1950s, two small quarries on the deposit produced limestone for road building material.

In 2006 and 2007, Graymont Western Canada Inc. completed minor sampling programs on the Hansard claims. In 2008, five diamond drillholes, totalling 866.0 metres, were completed. Substantial thicknesses of moderate- to high-calcium limestone were reported to have been intersected; however, they were all underlain by poor quality, un-quarriable rocks that restrict the expandable resource potential of the area. The best results came from the Auto Ridge area to the southwest of the Hansard quarry.