The Cirqueback area is underlain by marine sedimentary and volcanic rock of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group. The stratigraphy is intruded by Late Triassic granodiorite, Early Jurassic monzodiorite to gabbro (Texas Creek Plutonic Suite) and Triassic to Jurassic syenite to monzonite (Copper Mountain Plutonic Suite).

The Cirqueback Zone is a mineralized sheared gossanous zone. It is occurs in andesite flows with gossanous areas and contains augite andesite dikes or sills and augite andesite flows. Shearing in the zone occurs as 2 to 5 metre wide leached silicified zones. The gossan varies from extremely leached and altered sheared rock with vuggy quartz and no visible mineralization to gossanous andesite with 3 to 8 per cent disseminated, cubic and veinlet pyrite, up to 2 per cent pyrrhotite and up to 1 per cent chalcopyrite.

Work History

In 1987 and 1988 Consolidated Silver Standard Mines Ltd. conducted limited geological mapping, prospecting and geochemical sampling on the Jack claim. Silver Standard collected a total of 34 rock, 1 silt and 135 soil samples in these two years. Harrisburg-Dayton Resources Corp. carried out seven man-days of prospecting, mapping and rock and soil sampling of the Jack claim during 1989. They collected 320 rock and 315 soil samples. In 1990, Silver Standard collected 72 rock, 10 silt and 36 soil on the Jack, RB 6, 8 and 10 claims. Results of the above programs outlined several areas of anomalous gold-copper values associated with chalcopyrite-pyrite mineralization within strongly fractured, chlorite-epidote altered zones and quartz-sulphide veins. During the 1987 to 1990 period, the Blue and Cirqueback zones were discovered and explored.