The Nonda occurrence is located in a remote area of northeast British Columbia along a ridgetop near the headwaters of a main east fork of Redpot Creek, about 203 kilometres northwest of Fort Nelson and 180 kilometres southeast of Watson Lake, Yukon. The property is not presently (ca. 2009) accessible by road, but numerous overgrown seismic lines and oil and gas exploration roads occur to the east. Brushing, upgrading and connecting of these existing discontinuous linear trails could form part of an access route that would link the property to existing all-season industrial roads that reach to within approximately 70 kilometres of the property. These latter roads provide direct access to the Horn River gas basin located approximately 150 kilometres east of the Nonda property.
The oldest rocks exposed on the Nonda property are quartz-pure sandstones (quartz arenite) of an unnamed Cambrian(?) succession. To the east these rocks are overlain by limy siltstones and limestones of the Silurian Nonda Formation. The Silurian rocks are in turn overlain by a generally eastward-younging succession that is dominated by dolomitic carbonate and limy fine grained clastic rocks of the Silurian-Devonian Wokkpash, Stone, Muncho-McConnell and Dunedin formations. These rocks are overlain by shale of the Devonian Besa Formation and are capped by fine-grained quartz sandstone to quartzite of the Mississippian Mattson Formation. Locally, Mattson Formation is exposed in the core of several northeast-oriented anticlines, and are flanked by overlying chert, siliceous argillite and siliciclastic rocks of the Permian Fantasque Formation and coarse clastic sedimentary rocks of the Carboniferous and Permian Kindle Formation.
The Nonda showing is underlain by a well exposed, homogeneous and remarkably continuous belt of pale grey to bone-white pre-Silurian (Cambrian?) quartz-pure sandstone or quartz arenite. The quartz arenite crops out along a rounded, subdued alpine plateau over a distance of approximately 11.5 kilometres. The minimum width of the belt of quartz arenite is approximately 1000 metres, but it may extend well to the east beneath thin cover. Several west-trending incised gullies provide continuous exposures of quartz arenite over widths of more than 1000 metres and over a vertical distance of more than 140 metres. The quartz arenite displays vague to locally pronounced bedding with shallow dips ranging from 8 to 20 degrees to the west-northwest.
North of the central Ghost Ridge area, the belt of quartzite appears to terminate abruptly, and maybe offset by late brittle faulting. To the south, the quartz arenite becomes interbedded with a grey to black slaty shale. The quartz arenite is bound to the west by a steeply dipping reverse fault. The quartz arenite extends eastward beneath a layer of pebble conglomerate, a unit less than 2 metres thick whose base marks the plane of a gently east-dipping erosional unconformity. Pale orange, limy shale and sandstone and grey to black fossiliferous limestone comprise the overlying, gently east-dipping Silurian Nonda Formation.
In hand sample, the quartz arenite is pale grey to white and visually pure, with centimetre-scale bedding defined by slight variations in the size of the quartz grains. Individual quartz grains are sub-angular to sub-rounded and impurities are rare. Minor euhedral pyrite occurs locally and, where oxidized, imparts a pale orange stain that typically coats fractures and follows more porous and permeable beds.
In 2009, Stikine Gold Corporation recognized the need for a northeast British Columbia source of frac sand for the region’s developing unconventional gas exploration and production sector. Frac sand is used by the oil and gas industry as a proppant to hold fractures open after a hydraulic fracturing treatment. In April and May of 2009, an assessment of central and northern British Columbia’s potential lode sources of quartz arenite and quartz arenite was conducted. The research identified a number of prospective targets northwest of Fort Nelson and northeast of Prince George and staking of many of these areas ensued. A total of 17 properties were staked, including the Nonda property.
In July, 2009 Stikine Gold Corporation completed an initial reconnaissance of the Nonda property and identified a north-trending belt of quartz arenite more than 11 kilometres long by approximately 1 kilometre wide. Initial observations and positive results from preliminary testing of samples from the Ghost Ridge area of the Nonda property determined it to be a priority for focused follow-up exploration. The company followed the initial reconnaissance program with a 9-hole HQ diamond drilling program that ran from September to early October 2009. The 2009 exploration drilling campaign was conducted over a 2.2 kilometre strike length and 0.9 kilometre width of the formation to test the thickness of the desirable unit. A total of 9 HQ diameter diamond drillholes, with an aggregate length of 934 metres, were completed in the Ghost Ridge area of the Nonda property. Drilling was completed to depths of between 70 and 168 metres. Each hole was collared and terminated in quartz arenite. Results from drilling, 3D wire-frame modeling and rock volumetric estimation outline a horizontal sheet of quartz arenite that covers 2,349,100 square metres and is 70-165 metres thick. The sheet of quartz arenite has a volume of 256,907,000 cubic metres (Assessment Report 31621).
Stikine Energy Corp. received a technical report and preliminary economic assessment for the Nonda frac sand project dated October 25, 2011. An inferred mineral resource of 702 million tonnes is based on bedrock mapping, core drilling, 3-D wire-frame modeling and volume estimates. Deductions used to account for potential overestimation were applied to give an adjusted inferred resource estimate of 625 million tonnes (Press Release - Stikine Energy Corp., October 25, 2011).
In 2012, Stikine Energy Corp. received crush test results for samples submitted in December, 2011, and has also completed a detailed review of all laboratory test results received.
