The Kechika River barite occurrence is located on the Liard Plain in north-central BC, approximately 35 kilometres southwest of the settlement of Fireside and 40 kilometres southwest of the Coal River Lodge.
The area lies within the Kechika Trough, an elongated southerly extension of the Selwyn Basin in Yukon. The Kechika Trough and Selwyn Basin are rift-controlled sedimentary basins that formed along the North American Continental Margin during the Upper Proterozoic to Paleozoic (Assessment Report 32844). The regionally prominent lithological units are the Middle Devonian to Early Mississippian Earn Group (variably carbonaceous argillite, cherty argillite, siltstone and slate; locally baritiferous); the Lower Ordovician to Middle Devonian Road River Group (siltstones and dolomitic siltstones; minor limestones, cherts, argillites and sandstones) and the Upper Cambrian to Lower Ordovician Kechika Group (slates, calcareous slates and fine grained to silty limestones; Assessment Report 32844). Several, possibly early Paleozoic, elongate gabbro bodies are found in Kechika Group rocks north of Gemini Lakes.
Although some areas with sedimentary units of Kechika Trough have shown potential to host Carlin-type mineralization, geochemical anomalies on the Gemini property appear to be more closely linked to a series of gabbro plugs and dykes (Assessment Report 32844). The regional metallogeny of the Kechika Trough has historically been dominated by zinc-lead-silver mineralization, modeled as sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) deposit systems. Common characteristics include laminations to massive beds of pyrite, pyrrhotite, sphalerite and galena hosted within shales, cherts and carbonates. Barite is also a component of many SEDEX-style deposit systems. SEDEX deposits in the Kechika Trough are typically found hosted within the Road River and lower Earn Group strata (Assessment Report 33971).
The Kechika River Barite showing is a thin to moderately interlayered or massive barite within pyritiferous slate of the Upper Devonian to Mississippian Earn Group. The barite sequence is at least 4 metres thick, composed of individual barite beds from 1 to 10 centimetres thick, which collectively form approximately 30 per cent of the section thickness. The host is fine-grained altered slate or fine-grained felsic tuff (Bulletin 107, page 104).
A grab sample of the barite assayed 42.5 per cent barium (Geoscience Map 1998-10 and Bulletin 107, page 105).
In 2011, a high-resolution magnetic airborne survey was conducted by New-Sense Geophysics on behalf of Precipitate Gold. Precipitate Gold also collected seven rock samples from the Kechika River Barite property. Most samples consisted of sub-angular to rounded barite boulders and cobbles; one sample was taken from bedrock. Samples often contained minor amounts of pyrite and ankerite. All base and precious metal values yielded by these samples were very low, including up to 1 part per billion gold, up to 9 parts per million arsenic, up to 0.02 parts per million silver, up to 7.6 parts per million copper, up to 17.1 parts per million lead, up to 180 parts per million barium and up to 81 parts per million zinc (Assessment Reports 32844, 33971).
Also in 2011, Precipitate Gold collected 168 soil samples and 50 stream sediment samples from the south-central domain of the Gemini property. Samples taken from three contour-controlled traverse lines yielded weakly to strongly anomalous values for silver (up to 2.87 parts per million), copper (up to 343 parts per million) and zinc (up to 3140 parts per million); slightly elevated values of arsenic (up to 29.9 parts per million) and lead (up to 18.9 parts per million) and low gold values. Stream sediment samples returned weakly to strongly anomalous values for gold (up to 159 parts per billion) and zinc (up to 1600 parts per million). The best gold values are clustered near the centre of the property, over or adjacent to a gabbro plug (Assessment Report 32844).
In 2012, Precipitate Gold carried out soil, stream silt, rock and biogeochemical sampling. Geochemical analysis of the rock samples yielded generally low results, with key elements assaying maximum values of 2.9 parts per billion gold, 2.6 parts per million silver, 132.4 parts per million arsenic, 177.8 parts per million copper, 1101 parts per billion mercury, 26.6 parts per million lead, 18.2 parts per million antimony, 1397 parts per million zinc, 1079 parts per million barium, 36.7 parts per million cadmium and 0.69 parts per million tellurium (Assessment Report 33971).
