The Corydalis showing is located 15 kilometres north of Cry Lake, approximately 70 kilometres northeast of the community of Dease Lake.

The Beale Lake area, bordering the northeast side of the Lower Cretaceous Cassiar Batholith, is largely underlain by the Sylvester Allochthon, a stack of thrust sheets of oceanic to pericratonic arc affinity that overlies the para-autochthonous Cassiar terrane. South of Beale Lake, large parts of the Mississippian to Permian upper Dorsey assemblage are dominated by green and grey phyllite and quartzite (Precambrian-Devonian Rapid River tectonite).

Prominent gossans, including the Perm (MINFILE 104I 123, located 11 kilometres north) and Corydalis showings, occur within the Lower Permian Nizi pluton. They are crosscutting, linear, probably fracture-controlled zones, trending west-northwest. The Corydalis gossan crosses a spur ridge of the mountain in the headwaters of Nizi Creek. It is 200 metres across and 600 metres in strike length. Within the gossans, plagioclase porphyry dikes and zones of finely comminuted intrusive breccia cut the main phase tonalites, diorites and gabbros of the pluton. The intrusive breccias incorporate angular clasts of their country rocks. They characteristically contain rounded, milled single-crystal plagioclase and hornblende fragments in a matrix of dust-sized rock debris cemented by secondary silica. Many are laced with fine quartz veinlets. Disseminated pyrite and lesser chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite occur throughout the matrix, as well as in fractures in the surrounding country rock.

Samples from these gossans contain 0.11 to 0.14 per cent copper, with anomalous silver (1.8 grams per tonne), zinc and mercury (Fieldwork 2001, page 53).

Work History

During 2003 through 2006, the area was held by Sutcliffe Resources Ltd. as part of the Beale Lake property. See the Keel (MINFILE 104I 098) occurrence for a complete summary of this work.