The Lunar Creek 5 West occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1880 metres on a west-facing slope, approximately 4.5 kilometres north of Lunar Creek and 12 kilometres south of the Frog Lakes.
Regionally, the area lies on the western edge of the Omineca Belt near the Kutcho fault, marking the boundary with rocks of the Intermontane Belt. The area is underlain by Early Jurassic granodioritic intrusive rocks of the Pitman Batholith with minor roof pendants of metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks. Early regional mapping correlated these rocks with the Devonian to Permian Asitka Group based on lithological similarities (Geological Survey of Canada Open File 483). Fossil evidence from later regional mapping dates least part of the sequence as Mississippian (Geological Survey of Canada Paper 80-1B, pages 207-211). A tentative age of Devonian to Permian is given to these metamorphic rocks. To the west lie ultramafic rocks of the Middle Triassic Lunar Creek Complex.
Locally, a biotite monzonite gneiss and monzonite host disseminated pyrite, chalcopyrite and malachite. A quartzite in the area also hosts pyrite with trace chalcopyrite.
In 2012, grab samples (129179 to 129184) of the intrusive yielded from trace to 1.05 grams per tonne gold, 0.3 to 3.2 grams per tonne silver, 0.375 to 0.699 per cent copper and trace to 0.040 per cent rubidium, whereas a grab sample (129149) of the quartzite assayed 0.121 per cent copper and 2.61 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 33484).
Work History
During 1971 through 1976, El Paso Mining and Milling Co. completed programs of prospecting, geological mapping and geochemical sampling on the area as the West claims.
In 2012, Stratton Resources Inc. completed a program of prospecting and rock and silt sampling on the area as the Lunar 1-37 claims. The following year, a 1002.0 line-kilometre airborne magnetic and radiometric survey was completed on the area. In 2014, a program of reprocessing and modeling of previous airborne magnetic and radiometric data was completed.
