The Inel Ridge (BRDZ) occurrence is in northwest British Columbia, approximately 96 kilometres northwest of Stewart in an area known as the Bronson Corridor.

The Inel property, of which the Inel Ridge zone is a part, is primarily underlain by marine sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group. Lower Jurassic andesitic volcanics of the Hazeleton Group overlie the Stuhini rocks and Early Jurassic feldspar porphyritic rock and monzodioritic to gabbroic rock intrude the strata.

Much of the country rock in the area includes a basalt rhyolitic breccias, flows and clastic sediments, andesitic volcaniclastics, conglomerates, and minor limestones with intercalated basalt flows and breccias.

The strata are cut by a long, narrow, high angle alaskite (quartz-feldspar porphyry) pluton which extends from the south boundary of the Inel claims, north across Snippaker Ridge just south of Snippaker Peak. At the south, the contacts are marked by wide, granitized margins with zinc-silver mineralization on the west, and oxidized copper-molybdenum on the east. In the Main Sulphide zone area, the east contact is marked by a swarm of narrow dikes. The dikes and mineralized country rocks have been faulted, deformed, and cut by wide pyrite-quartz-feldspar injection breccia dikes (refer to Inel, 104B 113).

In 1984, prospecting along both sides of the upper Snippaker Ridge resulted in the discovery of the Inel Ridge zone.

The mineralization appears to be a quartz-carbonate- sulphide vein stockwork within a pyritized halo. Mineralization includes pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. Prospecting samples within the Ridge zone assayed 7.6 grams per tonne gold and 40.11 grams per tonne silver over 1.06 metres and 7.8 grams per tonne gold and 590.8 grams per tonne silver over 1.7 metres (Inel Resources Ltd., Press Release, August 5, 1988).

By 1988 the Inel Ridge zone had been traced for 1000 metres giving results of up to 100 grams per tonne gold across one 15-metre-wide exposure of veined, pyritic sediment (Assessment Report 18062). The three core holes drilled in 1988 were located on the upper west side of Inel Ridge below a saddle marking erosion along a shear zone. The three holes intersected altered, indurated, pyritic sedimentary and basaltic rocks. The mineralized strata intersected by these three drill holes represent the southwesterly portion of the Inel Ridge Zone which was located in 1984.

Surface drilling on the Ridge zone returned 29.8 grams per tonne gold over 2.25 metres and 8.5 grams per tonne gold over 1.5 metres from drill hole S88-12 (Inel Resources Ltd., Press Release, September 23, 1988).

In 2017, drill hole INDDH17-055 (total length 249 metres) was drilled on Inel Ridge to test an area 50 metres below a 2016 intersection of 1.0 metre of 53.10 grams per tonne gold in INDDH16-042. Dril hole INDDH-055 reported high-grade intersections. Drill holes INDDH17-056 and INDDH17-057 were drilled to the west away from the BRDZ and therefore subsequent drill holes INDDH17-090, 091 and 093 were sited at 100 metre stepouts to the northeast and drill holes INDDH17-103 and 104 were sited 400 metre to the southeast to test potential associated with the BRDZ. Drillhole INDDH17-055 intersected 2.6 metres of 31.59 grams per tonne gold, including 1.1 metres of 63.30 grams per tonne gold and returned 73.0 metres of 1.71 grams per tonne gold and ended in mineralization (Colorado Resources Ltd., News Release, September 12, 2017). INDDH17-056 was also drilled from the same setup as INDDH17-055 but at a different azimuth and failed to yield significant results suggesting that the probable trend of mineralization is sub-parallel to the greater than 8-kilometre Big Rock Deformation Zone ("BRDZ").

Mineralization in the BRDZ has now been tracked over 450 metres between the collars of INDDH17-055 and INDDH17-103. Mineralization within the BRDZ appears to be weakening to the northeast of the collar of INDDH17-055 but remains open and untested to the southwest of the collar of INDDH17-103.

Th AK zone, to the northwest, has been traced for about 240 metres and may extend or repeat into other areas of known mineralization, in particular the Inel Ridge Zone and the Discovery South zone (104B 113) to the south.

See Inel (104B 113) and AK (104B 557) for details of related mineralization and history.

Work History

The Inel showings were reportedly discovered by Cominco Ltd in 1965 and staked as the Inel group in 1969.

A 90 per cent interest in the Inel 7-60 claims was acquired by Skyline Explorations Ltd. through a January 1970 agreement with Robert Gifford. Trenching and sampling was carried out in 1971. During 1972 Texas Gulf, Inc, as operator, restaked the property and carried out geological mapping and resampling.

In June 1973 Skyline optioned the property (Inel 7-72) to Ecstall Mining Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Texasgulf Inc (Texas Gulf, Inc, in 1973. Work by Ecstall during 1973 and 1974 included a geochemical silt survey (19 samples), a magnetometer survey over 8 line-miles, a vertical-loop electromagnetic survey over 5 line-miles, and trenching on Inel 43, and 45.

Skyline restaked the ground in 1980 as the Inel 1-4 claims (80 units). Work by Skyline from 1980 to 1985 included geological mapping, electromagnetic surveys, trenching, sampling and drilling. In 1984, 22 holes were drilled totaling 1630 metres.

Inel Resources Ltd. was incorporated in 1987 and acquired ownership of the Inel claims. In 1987, Inel completed 183 metres of underground development on the Discovery zone. In 1988, a further 570 metres of underground development and 4258 metres in 54 holes were completed on the Discovery zone. The AK zone was discovered in 1987.

In 1989, Inel Resources and Gulf International Minerals Ltd amalgamated and Gulf completed 5454 metres of drilling in 46 holes on the Discovery zone and 3060 metres in 31 holes on the AK zone. In 1991 Gulf conducted mapping, road construction and underground sampling, trenching and 1 drill hole (33 metres) on the AK zone and underground sampling on the Discovery zone.

In 2000, Gulf International conducted traverses near the AK Zone and the extent of mineralization was traced as far as snow conditions allowed. A total of five samples was collected in the area and plotted on existing geology maps.

During 2009 through 2011, Skyline Gold Corp. completed programs of prospecting, geochemical (rock and soil) sampling, trenching, airborne and ground geophysical surveys and 23 diamond drill holes, totalling 5676 metres, on the area as the Iskut property.

In 2016, Colorado’s exploration program on its KSP property included sampling (990 soil, 511 rock), geological mapping (50 square kilometres), ground geophysics (IP, 10-line kilometres; ground mag, 47-line kilometres) an airborne VTEM survey (126 line kilometres) and 8,862 metres of diamond drilling in 59 holes. Drilling (53 holes) focused around the former Inel underground workings (104B 113).

In 2017, Colorado Resources drilled a total of 11,824 metres in 24 holes at the KSP property. In 2017, twelve drill holes (INDDH-055, 056, 057, 058, 090, 091, 092, 101, 102, 103, 104 and 105) were completed at Inel Ridge along a 1000 metre northwesterly trend associated with the Big Rock deformation zone (BRDZ) (Assessment Report 37604).

In 2018 Colorado Resources drilled 4 holes in the BRDZ (Inel Ridge) area and 4 holes in the AK area. The drilling in the Inel area continued to return encouraging results. The holes in the BRDZ are characterized by thick packages of interbedded siltstones, sandstones and wackes with subordinate amounts of volcanoclastic rocks. Thin intercepts of monzonite were encountered with varying degrees of sercitization. Inel appears to have multiple styles of mineralization and a complex geological picture. (Assessment Report 38707). Colorado Resources Ltd. announced its name change to QuestEx Gold & Copper Ltd. on September 16, 2020.