The Shasta 3 occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1800 metres on the west slope of Mount Shasta and approximately 3.7 kilometres north-northeast of the northeast end of Black Lake.

The oldest rocks in the area are Permian limestones of the Asitka Group, which generally occur in thrust contact with Upper Triassic Stuhini (Takla) Group volcanics, and as roof pendants within the Lower Jurassic Black Lake Suite. Stuhini Group rocks are dominantly alkaline to subalkaline, submarine mafic volcanics. Unconformably overlying the Stuhini Group are Lower Jurassic Hazelton Group rocks representing a probable island arc sequence of volcanics and associated sediments. The Lower Jurassic Toodoggone Formation represents distinctive quartz-bearing facies of the Hazelton Group, and comprises dominantly calc-alkaline, intermediate to felsic subaerial volcanics. Granodiorite and quartz monzonite of the Black Lake Suite intrude the Toodoggone and Stuhini rocks. The regional structure is dominated by major dextral strike-slip faults.

The occurrence area is underlain by two distinct lithologies of the Toodoggone volcanics. They are the pyroclastic series (Attycelley member) and the epivolcaniclastic series (Saunders member). The pyroclastic series unconformably overlies pyroxene feldspar phyric basalt flows and breccias of the Stuhini Group. The pyroclastics consist of dacitic feldspar quartz crystal tuffs, chloritic and heterolithic lapilli tuffs, and an underlying feldspar-quartz-biotite porphyry flow. These units all contain characteristic orange-weathering plagioclase feldspars. The epivolcaniclastic series consists of green to maroon feldspar phyric tuffs, heterolithic agglomerates, lahars and ash tuffs. These strata overly the pyroclastic series, but are typically seen in fault contact with them.

Locally, at least two zones of silicification and quartz±chalcedony±carbonate stockworks with undescribed sulphides are hosted in interbedded crystal tuff, lithic tuff and volcanic breccia.

In 1984, float and outcrop samples from a zone of silicification and quartz, located on the east flank of Mount Shasta, yielded anomalous results of up to 0.590 gram per tonne gold and 19 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 16241). Also at this time, talus grab samples from the Shasta 3 claim are reported to have yielded up to 2.26 grams per tonne gold and 149.1 grams per tonne silver (Property File – Downing, B.W. [1985-01-30]: Report on the 1984 Shasta Project).

In 1989, three rock samples (PD-145, -252 and -253) collected from the west flank of the mountain yielded from 0.10 to 2.20 grams per tonne gold and 7.8 to 40.9 grams per tonne silver, whereas a sample (PD-251) of altered porphyry with minor copper oxides, taken from the south flank of the mountain and approximately 550 metres to the southeast of the previous samples, assayed 2.17 grams per tonne gold, 523 grams per tonne silver and 2.32 per cent copper (Property File –DeLancey, P.R. [1990-01-01]: Baker Mine - Property showings - Page 6-9 and 13-14).

Work History

The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby Shasta (MINFILE 094E 050) and Baker (MINFILE 094E 026) occurrences and a completed exploration history can be found there.