The Hope zone is one of three mineralized zones on the Silver Hope property that are southerly and along strike with the Equity Silver deposit and along what is called the Main horizon. From north to south these are the Hope, Superstition and Gaul, all of which occur in the Goosly volcanic rocks which are correlative with Cretaceious Skeena or Kasalka groups. See Gaul for details of the geological setting of the mineralized zones.

A stock of the Eocene Goosly Plutonic Suite occurs to the immediate east and consists of monzodiorite to gabbro.

Historical and recent drilling at the Hope Zone intersected a succession of Unit 3 sedimentary-volcanic strata overlying pyroclastic strata of Unit 2. These are cut by moderately to steeply dipping late stage andesitic dikes up to ten metres wide. Dense sets of micro-fractures in-filled with pyrite plus/minus quartz, calcite, chlorite, chalcopyrite and local tetrahedrite form stockworks predominantly hosted by Unit 2 and 3 dust tuffs as well as local sections of Unit 3 pebble conglomerate. Mineralization occurs primarily within fractures, and within local sub-metre zones of micro fracturing and brecciation. Higher fracture density is coincident with more intense alteration and the occurrence of more diverse sulphide fracture fillings and breccia veins with pyrite, tetrahedrite ± chalcopyrite. Although sulphide filled micro fractures are ubiquitous the best copper-silver mineralization occurs in a series of parallel, metre scale zones of moderately steep west dipping breccia veins and/or dense stockworks. These contain semi-massive tetrahedrite plus/minus pyrite plus/minus chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena.

Anomalous amounts of gold, arsenic, antimony and locally, bismuth are present. Pyrite is pervasive, typically as millimetre to centimetre scale fracture fillings.

Consolidated Empire’s drill hole 04SH-6 was a 100 metre down dip test of the high-grade mineralized zone found in previous Equity’ drill hole (X86CH-274), demonstrating the high-grade potential of the Hope zone. Drill hole 04SH-06 intersected a high-grade zone grading 4.1 per cent copper and 637 grams per tonne silver over 2.4 metres beginning at 287.0 metres (Assessment Report 27869). This 2.4 metre zone in consisted of a breccia vein of semi-massive pyrite-tetrahedrite overprinted with massive pyrite plus/minus quartz veins, which crosscut dust tuff at 30 to 50 degrees. This interval contained 60 per cent pyrite and 25 per cent tetrahedrite overall.

Refer to Gaul (093L 256) for further geological and work history details of the Silver Hope property.