The Nation Mountain occurrence is situated on the west flank of Mount Nation, approximately 57 kilometres southeast of Takla Landing. The area was assessed as part of a regional exploration program carried out by Amoco Mining in 1971.
The Mount Nation area is underlain by mesozonal plutonic rocks assigned to the Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous Hogem Intrusive Complex, which have intruded volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Middle Triassic to Lower Jurassic Takla Group east of the Pinchi fault zone. The plutonic rocks form an elongate batholith, extending from Chuchi Lake north to the Mesilinka River.
At an elevation of 1675 metres, chalcopyrite is exposed as medium-grained crystal aggregates situated within and contiguous to mafic clots and as disseminated grains along fracture faces within a gabbroic body. The gabbro shows pervasive propylitization (development of chlorite and epidote) and grades laterally into syenogabbro and syenodiorite. The chalcopyrite mineralization is sparse, low-grade and is thought to be of magmatic origin.
This showing was first worked in 1967 by Cominco Ltd as part of their B 1–20 claim, then in 1971 by Nation Lake Mines Ltd as part of their Rottacker claims. In between these programs the claims were allowed to lapse. The prospect itself consists of a trenched copper occurrence in an approximately 25-centimetre wide shear zone located at a fault intersection, with anomalous copper-in-soil values crossing the showing along a north-northwest trend. A much larger scale program was conducted on the Nation prospect by Grand America Minerals Ltd, who staked their 455-unit Nation property in May 1990. The project area was immediately overflown with 719 kilometres of airborne magnetic and very low frequency electromagnetic surveys. The strongest very low frequency electromagnetic response corresponded to a northwest-trending zone associated with the eastern margin of a magnetic high, presumably the eastern contact of the Sedlo Range monzodiorite. The Nation property lapsed in 1993 and remained open until it was incorporated into the Redton property in 2011.
