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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  23-May-2023 by Nicole Barlow (NB)

Summary Help Help

NMI
Name WAPITI, FARM Mining Division Liard
BCGS Map 093I057
Status Prospect NTS Map 093I10E
Latitude 054º 31' 04'' UTM 10 (NAD 83)
Longitude 120º 41' 12'' Northing 6043594
Easting 649737
Commodities Phosphate Deposit Types F07 : Upwelling-type phosphate
Tectonic Belt Foreland Terrane Ancestral North America
Capsule Geology

The Wapiti phosphate showing is located approximately 150 kilometres northeast of the town of Prince George. The showing is 44 kilometres from the British Columbia–Alberta border, in the Liard 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 slope and basin 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.

Phosphatic units occur mainly within the Whistler member of the Triassic Sulphur Mountain Formation (Spray River Group). The Whistler member is dominated by cycles of algal laminated silty limestones grading into massive calcareous siltstone. Silty shales, pelletal phosphorite and phosphatic pebble conglomerates form important but minor interbeds. The basal 3 metres of the Whistler member contains a concentration of pelletal phosphatic material culminating in a phosphatic conglomerate. The basic structural style in the area consists of northwest- to southeast-trending tight anticlines with relatively broad box-like synclines. Minor structures are responsible for both removal and repetition of the phosphatic section and therefore influence the distribution of the phosphatic units.

In 1988, the average yield of 16 hand trenches and surface sections was 16.66 per cent phosphate over 1.41 metres (Assessment Report 8407).

In 1998, the area was staked as the Farm claims.

More recent and extensive exploration and development has been undertaken at the Wapiti Phosphate showing (MINFILE 093I 039), located 4 kilometres south-southeast.

Bibliography
EMPR ASS RPT *8407
EMPR EXPL 1980-540; 1998-44
EMPR FIELDWORK 1992, pp. 537-546
EMPR PF (Coburn, S.S. (1954): Wapiti River area, B.C. and maps)
GSC BULL 247
GSC MAP 1424A
GSC P 71-30
Placer Dome File
EMPR PFD 15033

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