The Ben occurrence is located approximately 7.6 kilometres south of Mount Graves on a north-south–trending ridge separating Saunders Creek to the west and a south-flowing tributary of Jock Creek to the east.

The area is situated 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 the early Jurassic granodiorite to quartz monzonite 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, extensive outcroppings of Toodoggone Formation (Metsantan Member) andesite flows are cut by porphyritic trachyte dikes, and small bodies of monzonite. Within the monzonite is an epidotic zone, 5 by 10 metres in size, with irregular patches of malachite and chalcocite. A silicified zone within the Toodoggone Formation was also noted and estimated at 10 metres in width.

In 1987, a sample of chalcocite veining in a zone of fracture-controlled epidote and iron carbonate alteration associated with aplite dikes from the area assayed 0.24 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 16804).

In 2003, grab samples (RMR-PN-03-023) over an area of 5 by 10 metres assayed 5.77 grams per tonne gold, greater than 200 grams per tonne silver and greater than 1.00 per cent copper (Assessment Report 27310).

In 2006, a grab sample (6501) of a siliceous, potassium feldspar-epidote altered shear zone with chalcopyrite and malachite, located along the ridge approximately 500 metres to the north, assayed 0.08 gram per tonne gold, 10.2 grams per tonne silver and 0.619 per cent copper (Assessment Report 28645).

Work History

The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby Ian (MINFILE 094E 202) and Pil South (MINFILE 094E 310) occurrence and a complete regional exploration history can be found there.