The Bell occurrence is located on a west-facing slope, east of Kitkiata Creek and approximately 700 metres southeast of the south end of Kitkiata Lake.
The area lies in the Middle Devonian Ecstall Greenstone Belt (Endicott Arm Assemblage), underlain by intercalated felsic and intermediate volcanics and fine clastic sediments. The Ecstall Belt is a north-northwest–trending, high-grade metamorphic belt bounded by the elongate Middle Cretaceous Ecstall pluton on the west and the Paleocene Quottoon pluton on the east. The rocks include sericite schist, quartz sericite schist, pyritic quartz sericite schist, chlorite schist, andesite, tuff, greywacke, siltstone and argillite, which have been intruded by Mississippian dioritic rocks.
Locally, a 10-metre-thick quartz-sericite-pyrite schist hosts several parallel seams, up to 3 centimetres thick, of medium-grained, black sphalerite with accessory galena and rare chalcopyrite.
Five rock samples from the occurrence area reported to have yielded an average of 0.53 gram per tonne gold, 71.4 grams per tonne silver, 2.63 per cent zinc and 0.106 per cent copper with values of up to 0.78 gram per tonne gold, 103.6 grams per tonne silver, 6.24 per cent zinc and 0.163 per cent copper (Dyakowski, C. [2021-01-27]: Technical Report on the Ecstall Property, Skeena Mining Division, British Columbia).
Work History
The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby Ecstall (MINFILE 103H 011) occurrence and a regional exploration summary can be found there.