The Canyon Saddle showing 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 area of the Canyon Saddle is underlain by fine-grained andesitic tuffs that are locally siliceous to silicified. They generally contain traces of pyrite and pyrrhotite but in siliceous and silicified sections, pyrite content can be as high as 5 per cent and pyrrhotite, 1 per cent. Sampling of this lithology yielded generally poor results for all elements. Sample 31751 however, assayed 7.09 grams per tonne gold and 3.3 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 20152). This sample was taken from a 2 to 3 metre wide, milky white, east-trending quartz vein. The vein was traced for approximately 50 meters before it was lost under talus cover.

Work History

During the summer of 1989, Homestake Mineral Development Company conducted phase one prospecting included stream sediment and outcrop sampling. Results obtained from the stream samples were encouraging with several silts assaying greater than 200 parts per billion gold (Assessment Report 19064). Phase two consisted of several reconnaissance traverses on the property resulting in the location of 3 quartz veins with gold and silver anomalies (Assessment Report 20152).

In 1990 Homestake completed a 2.6 line-kilometre Saddle Grid over an area of quartz veining and alteration in andesitic volcanic rocks in the northeastern portion of the property. During the program 40 outcrop samples and 2 stream sediment samples were collected (Assessment Report 21442).