The Eagle vein is located about 80 kilometres south of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, just west of Partridge Lake. The property is situated approximately 25 kilometres south of the past producing Mt. Skukum gold mine and 35 kilometres west of the South Klondike Highway connecting the Alaska Highway with the port of Skagway, Alaska. Access is via helicopter out of either Whitehorse or Atlin.
The area is underlain by rocks of the Bennett Lake Caldera Complex which consists of two nested calderas, an eroded structural dome and a thick succession of pyroclastic and epiclastic rocks. The complex is surrounded by granitic rocks containing pendants. The caldera is located near the eastern contact of the Coast Plutonic Complex and the Whitehorse Trough. Plutonic rocks intruded in early Tertiary time.
The Eagle showing is located within a 2.3 by 1 kilometre area of Early Eocene rocks of the Sloko Group consisting of coarse-grained volcaniclastic and pyroclastic rocks, and rhyolite, dacite and andesitic volcanic flows. The Sloko rocks are enveloped by a Middle Eocene pluton consisting of granite and granodiorite.
Exploration began in the Partridge Lake area in 1979 when E & B Exploration Ltd. ran a regional exploration program for uranium. In 1987, a large group of claims that include the current Eagle showing were acquired by Doron Exploration Ltd. In 1987, the company completed a very brief 3-day reconnaissance sampling program on the claim block, which identified galena-bearing quartz vein float that returned silver grades up to 147.2 grams per tonne silver (the “Emily Vein area”). Several other float occurrences were identified as weakly anomalous in silver and gold, and sporadic sampling of altered brecciated granitic rocks returned weakly elevated gold values up to 0.25 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 18190). Based on these results, Doron completed an additional ten-day reconnaissance evaluation of the property in July 1988. That program resulted in the discovery of the “Eagle Vein”, a narrow quartz-chalcedonic vein which returned silver grades up to 800 grams per tonne, but with only marginal associated gold values. Several other narrow quartz-sulphide veins were located on the property, returning sporadically high silver grades up to 400 grams per tonne, but with associated gold values of usually less than 100 parts per billion (Assessment Report 18176).
In 2006, Endurance Gold Corporation conducted a reconnaissance prospecting and sampling program consisting of the collection of 22 rock - and 6 soil samples. Of primary interest was the earlier discovery by Doron of a large quartz-pyrite-pyrrhotite-arsenopyrite boulder at the base of an icefield, which assayed 14,356 grams per tonne silver and 44.5 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 28836). No subsequent work was ever completed to determine the source of the float occurrence. Since the boulder discovery in 1988, all icefields in the region have subsided considerably, and the source of the high-grade float occurrence was the primary exploration focus of the 2006 reconnaissance program.
The Eagle vein is mineralized with pyrite, galena and fluorite and is hosted in altered volcanics (tuff). A channel sample (63826), across 30 centimetres, assayed 109.7 grams per tonne silver; a sample from a silicified zone in a trench assayed 44.46 grams per tonne gold and 14,356 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 18176).
