The Beav sandstone/frac sand occurrence is located about 9 kilometres east-southeast of Beavercrow Mountain (near Yukon border) and about 7 kilometres north of Toad River Post.

The area is underlain by north-northeast trending clastic and carbonate sedimentary rocks of Mississippian to Cretaceous age. The oldest rocks exposed in the central part of the area are quartz rich sandstones of the Mississippian Mattson Formation. These rocks are exposed in the core of several northeast oriented anticlines, and are flanked by chert, siliceous argillite and siliciclastic rocks of the Permian Fantasque Formation and coarse clastic sedimentary rocks of the Carboniferous and Permian Kindle Formation.

The Beav property was staked to cover a sedimentary succession of quartz-rich sandstone (Mississippian Mattson Formation). The quartz-rich sandstone is regarded to be a potential economic source of high-value frac sand, a commodity that is used in the extraction of hydrocarbons, and in particular shale-hosted natural gas.

Locally, quartz sandstone (Mattson Formation) occurs as a thin to thick bedded unit that is locally cross-bedded and forms a resistant cap to a series of mesa features. The quartz sandstone strikes northeast and dips gently to the southeast and may be in excess of 100 metres thick. The sandstone is finegrained to very fine-grained and is off-white to buff weathering. On fresh surface it is off-white to pale lavender, but commonly is pale orange where stained by iron oxide. The quartz sandstone occasionally reacts weakly to dilute HCl indicating the presence of calcite as matrix and/or cement.

Whole rock analysis (by XRF) and trace element analysis was conducted on five rock sample from the Beav property believed to be representative of the areas examined. The resulting whole rock analysis showed an average silica content of 91.08 per cent SiO2, an alumina content of 1.02 per cent Al2O3, and an iron content of 0.71 per cent Fe2O3 (Table 3 and Appendix A, Assessment Report 32344A). The high CaO (and lower SiO2) content in some samples is reflective of calcite cement. In others, where CaO is low and SiO2 higher, calcite cement is largely absent. Petrographic examinations were completed on 5 samples. In thin section, these rocks are fine- to very fine-grained quartz sandstones with angular to subangular clasts and calcite cement or (in places) sutured grain boundaries, and accessory zircon.

Work History

In 2009, Stikine Energy conducted programs of mapping and geochemical sampling. Whole rock analysis of 1 rock sample, thought to be representative of the area, returned a silica content of 96.96 per cent SiO2, an alumina content of 0.85 per cent Al2O3, and an iron content of 0.68 per cent Fe2O3 (Table 3 and Appendix A, Assessment Report 31617).

In 2010, the Stikine Energy work program consisted of bedrock mapping, geochemical sampling and laboratory analytical work. Field observations and results from analysis of selected samples from the Beav property indicate that it has potential to host bedrock material suitable for processing into frac sand. The Beav sandstone property is located kilometres 9 kilometres east-southeast of Beavercrow Mountain and about 8 kilometres east of the Crow sandstone occurrence (094N 013).