The North Quartz Skarn occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1700 metres on an east-facing slope, approximately 7.5 kilometres north-northwest of Black Lake.

The area lies within the Omineca-Cassiar Mountains at the southern end of the Toodoggone gold camp. It occurs within a Mesozoic volcanic arc assemblage that lies along the eastern margin of the Intermontane Belt, a northwest-trending belt of Paleozoic to Neogene sediments, volcanics and intrusions bounded to the east by the Omineca Belt and to the west and southwest by the Sustut and Bowser basins.

Permian Asitka Group crystalline limestones are the oldest rocks exposed in the region. They are commonly in thrust contact with Upper Triassic Takla Group andesite flows and pyroclastic rocks. Takla volcanics have been intruded by Lower Jurassic granodiorite to quartz monzonite of the Black Lake Suite and are in turn unconformably overlain by or faulted against Lower Jurassic calc-alkaline volcanics of the Toodoggone Formation (Hazelton Group).

The dominant structures in the area are steeply dipping faults that define a prominent regional northwest structural fabric trending 140 to 170 degrees. In turn, high-angle, northeast-striking faults (approximately 060 degrees) appear to truncate and displace northwest-striking faults. Collectively these faults form a boundary for variably rotated and tilted blocks underlain by monoclinal strata.

Locally, a zone of chalcopyrite bearing skarn(?) is reported.

In 1989, a sample (PD-128) assayed 0.252 gram per tonne gold, 33.0 grams per tonne silver and 1.466 per cent copper (Property File – Delancy, P.R. [1989-10-01]: Final report on the 1989 exploration program Chappelle Property).

Work History

The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby Baker/Chappelle (MINFILE 094E 026) and a complete exploration history can be found there.