The Cato occurrence is located west of Tudyah Lake and approximately 26.5 kilometres northwest of the community of McLeod Lake.
Regionally, the area is underlain by undivided sedimentary rocks of the Cambrian Atan Group, mudstone, siltstone, shale and fine clastic sedimentary rocks of the Ordovician to Mississippian Earn Group, calcsilicate metamorphic rocks of the Upper Cretaceous to Eocene Wolverine Complex and granitic intrusive rocks of Paleogene to Neogene age.
High-grade schists and gneisses, extensively intruded by pegmatites and granitic bodies of probable Cretaceous age, comprise the Wolverine Complex, an undifferentiated high metamorphic grade equivalent of the Upper Proterozoic Ingenika Group. Andesitic volcanic, greenstone, argillite, shale, and limestone of Upper Paleozoic age are interwoven with the metamorphic rocks.
The occurrence area is underlain by Cambrian limestone and black graphitic argillites of the Atan Group which are intruded by Paleogene to Neogene age granitic stocks and dikes.
Massive pyrite-pyrrhotite lenses occur over a strike distance of 50 metres in association with pink garnet skarns carrying values in zinc and copper.
A 1-metre section of massive sulphide mineralization assayed 8.7 per cent zinc and 0.13 per cent copper; and an adjacent 2.5 metre section of skarn ran 0.53 per cent zinc and trace copper (Assessment Report 21753). Mineralized green diopside skarn from an old trench assayed 0.3 per cent copper and 0.07 per cent molybdenum over 2 metres.
Work History
1980 and 1981 Denison Mines Limited carried out an exploration on a few properties in this area. The exploration programs, designed to find copper-molybdenum mineralization included limited geological mapping, soil sampling, trenching, and magnetometer surveys. Eleven rock, 31 soil, and 2 silt samples were collected. Discouraged by the results, Denison Mines dropped the properties. See Koots (MINFILE 093O 042) occurrence.
1991 D.L Cooke and Associates staked Cato 1 and 2 mineral claims (which in part overlapped with the former Denison Mine's properties) to cover airborne magnetic anomalies in this area. A reconnaissance program of prospecting, mapping and soil sampling was done on the property to evaluate the potential of the claims for copper, molybdenum and gold mineralization. The property was dropped the following year.
In 2007, limited rock sampling was done by Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd in the northeast section of the Carp claims which cover some of the same area as the 1980 and 1991 work (Assessment Report 29357). Mountain Boy completed a geochemical and trenching program on the Nickel-1, Nut 2-5, and Jack 3,5,7,9,11,13,15 and 17 as well as Carp 11-15 mineral claims. The program was designed to test areas of carbonate altered rocks on the Jack claims, nickel bearing limestones on the Nickel 1 claim as well as altered rocks on the Nut claims and areas of zinc mineralization in skarn rocks on the Carp claims.
In 2012, a minor program of prospecting and sampling was performed on the area as the Mackenzie Mo property.
In 2020 and 2021, Golden Planet Mining Corp. completed a regionally extensive program of prospecting, geological mapping, geochemical (rock, till and soil) sampling and a 4851.0 line-kilometre airborne magnetic and electromagnetic survey on the area as the Rider property (Assessment Report 39660).
