British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas and Responsible for Housing
News | The Premier Online | Ministries & Organizations | Job Opportunities | Main Index

MINFILE Home page  ARIS Home page  MINFILE Search page  Property File Search
Help Help
File Created: 21-Jul-1987 by Larry Jones (LDJ)
Last Edit:  01-Apr-2022 by Karl A. Flower (KAF)

Summary Help Help

NMI
Name TRENCH, ECSTALL, DUNSMUIR, SOUTH LENS, SOUTHWEST SHEAR Mining Division Skeena
BCGS Map 103H083
Status Showing NTS Map 103H13E
Latitude 053º 52' 06'' UTM 09 (NAD 83)
Longitude 129º 30' 52'' Northing 5969010
Easting 466175
Commodities Copper, Zinc, Silver Deposit Types G06 : Noranda/Kuroko massive sulphide Cu-Pb-Zn
Tectonic Belt Coast Crystalline Terrane Nisling, Plutonic Rocks
Capsule Geology

The Trench prospect crops out immediately southwest of the Ecstall South Lens (1) (See Ecstall 103H 011). The showing is exposed by a large open cut near the base of the hill immediately north of the old mining camp, and 140 metres east of the Main Adit portal (Hassard et al., 1987a, Figure 6). In the exploration trench, quartz-sericite schist hosts a north-trending 10-centimetre-thick sulphide bed. A sample assayed 330 ppm copper, 1200 parts per million zinc, 46 parts per million lead, 4.5 parts per million silver and 70 parts per billion gold (Hassard et al., 1987a, p. 26).

This same thin massive sulphide bed crops out again uphill directly to the north of this trench where it was termed the Southwest Shear (Douglas, 1953, p. 21 and 28). This showing is a 25-centimetre-wide band of massive pyrite hosted in quartz-sericite schist, and was investigated by a cluster of small prospecting pits to the west of the South Lens, 120 metres south-southwest of the portal of the Dunsmuir Tunnel, along the claim boundary between the Bluestone and the Red Gulch mineral claims. This same sulphide zone was intersected again in the Main Adit, mid-way between the portal and the No. 1 crosscut, and was also intersected in underground drillholes 60 and 60a, which were drilled southward from the east end of the No. 1 crosscut (Douglas, 1953, p. 21). The Trench/Southwest Shear prospect is significant because it indicates good potential for an en echelon lens of mineralization to the southwest of the South Lens.

The new structural interpretation that the Ecstall South and North sulphide lenses are repetitions of a single sulphide horizon on adjacent limbs of an isoclinal fold, also suggests that the Trench (Southwest Shear) mineralization may be the folded continuation of the Five Foot Vein (103H 089) prospect that crops out east of the Ecstall North Lens (103H 011).

Bibliography
EMPR ASS RPT *15488, *15756, 24605, 38705, 39155, 39478
EMPR EXPL 1987-C355
EMPR FIELDWORK 1999, pp. 249-265; 2000, pp. 279-306; 2001, pp. 151-170
EMPR OF 1999-2; 2002-03
GSC MAP 23-1970; 1385A; 1868A
GSC P 70-41
Douglas, H. (1953): Geology of the Ecstall Mine, Ecstall River, B.C.; unpublished Texas Gulf Sulphur Report
Dyakowski, C. (2021-01-27): Technical Report on the Ecstall Property, Skeena Mining Division, British Columbia
EMPR PFD 752725

COPYRIGHT | DISCLAIMER | PRIVACY | ACCESSIBILITY