The PILLAR EAST occurrence is located in a southeast-facing cirque valley, northwest of Jock Creek and approximately one kilometre northeast of The Pillar in the Toodoggone Gold Camp, Omineca Mountains, approximately 290 kilometres north of Smithers.
Regionally, the area is situated within a Mesozoic volcanic arc assemblage, which lies along the eastern margin of the Intermontane Belt, a northwest-trending belt of Paleozoic to Paleogene 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 Stuhini (Takla) Group andesite flows and pyroclastic rocks, and marine sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Lower to Middle Jurassic Hazelton Group. These rocks have been intruded by plutons and other bodies of the mainly granodiorite to quartz monzonite Early Jurassic 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, quartz-carbonate–veined, brecciated, stockwork-veined, silicified and limonitic volcanics host minor disseminated pyrite, electrum, argentite, fine free gold and silver associated with north-northeast trending epithermal zones over a strike length of 500 to 800 metres. Some of the veins also contain amethyst, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. The veins/breccias are northwest-striking and steeply dipping, whereas structural and/or fault zones strike north and dip near vertically. Northwest-striking feldspar porphyry dikes are also reported in the area.
In 2015, a rock chip sample (WG15-01) assayed 2.830 grams per tonne gold and 6.4 grams per tonne silver, whereas later that year a short, 3-metre long drillhole was collared and intersected limonitic and silicified rock with values of 0.083 to 2.8 grams per tonne gold and 4.1 to 12.7 grams per tonne silver over 0.6-metre intervals (Assessment Report 36861).
In 2016, four rock chip and talus samples (W16R05, W16R07, W16R09 and W16R10), taken along a north-northeast strike length of approximately 400 metres, yielded from 1.066 to 6.563 grams per tonne gold, 13.0 to 69.7 grams per tonne silver, 0.047 to 0.272 per cent lead and 0.049 to 0.445 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 36861).
In 2017, a rock sample (W17R-01) of quartz breccia subcrop, located at the northern end of the north-northeast trending mineralized zone, yielded 19.95 grams per tonne gold, 423 grams per tonne silver, 0.479 per cent lead and 0.135 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 37586).
In 2018, sampling of trenches yielded up to 12.22, 20.63 and 14.22 grams per tonne gold with 567.0, 694.0 and 113.0 grams per tonne silver over 0.40, 0.35 and 0.45 metres, respectively, in trench 2 (Assessment Report 37781). Also, at this time, a sample (W18R-01) of limonitic, heterolithic, brecciated volcanic rock from the southern end of the mineralized trend yielded 2.155 grams per tonne gold and 11.3 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 37781).
In 2022, sampling within the Pillar East cirque returned anomalous copper mineralization across a 50 m section of outcrop, with peak values of 2.23, 1.81 and 1.25 per cent copper (sample numbers F927045, F927044, F927149). Mineralization is hosted in variably chlorite-altered and brecciated andesites containing chalcopyrite and malachite staining (Assessment Report 40755). Follow-up sampling in 2023 on an outcrop of quartz-carbonate-galena-pyrite ± chalcopyrite ± azurite ± iron oxide veins, often on dike margins and along an andesite-granodiorite contact, included sample F925702 returning values of 0.52 gram per tonne gold, 56.90 grams per tonne silver, 0.98 per cent copper, 12.15 per cent lead and 4.11 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 41688).
Work History
From 2015 through 2019, Finlay Minerals completed programs of geological mapping and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the PIL property, which contains the Pillar East prospect. From 2020 through 2024, optionor, ATAC Resources Ltd. (later renamed Cascadia Minerals Ltd.) conducted programs of prospecting, geological mapping, soil and rock sampling and geophysical surveys (mostly induced polarization) over several target areas on the PIL property.
The area has been historically explored in conjunction with the nearby Atlas East and West (MINFILES 094E 305 and 094E 213) occurrences to the west and the Lar (MINFILE 094E 217) and Black (MINFILE 094E 042) to the east.
