The Lyla occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1550 metres in a small, east-facing, creek gully, north of Troutline Creek and approximately 6 kilometres east of the historical community of Cassiar.
The area is underlain by the Upper Paleozoic Sylvester Allochthon located on the northeastern margin of the Lower Cretaceous Cassiar Batholith. The Sylvester Allochthon is a fault bound imbricate assemblage of Mississippian to Upper Triassic Slide Mountain Complex regionally metamorphosed (greenschist) oceanic rocks thrust over the sediments of autochthonous North America. The assemblage contains basaltic to andesitic flows, pyroclastics, argillites, limestones, greywacke, chert, listwanite and quartz veins.
Locally, a quartz vein with tetrahedrite, sphalerite and trace chalcopyrite and pyrite hosts silver and gold values. The vein has an average width of 1.3 metres along a strike of approximately 110 degrees with a dip of 60 degrees to the southwest. The vein is associated with a 110-degree–trending fault zone. The quartz-carbonate alteration of a parent ultramafic has produced listwanite, which is associated with increased mineralization in the quartz veins.
Old diggings and undescribed showings are reported on a north-northeast–facing slope, approximately 700 metres north-northwest of the Lyla vein.
In 1984, a grab sample (6123) assayed 153.8 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 14375).
In 1986, a lone drillhole (E86-3) yielded 7.5 grams per tonne silver over 4 metres, including 0.53 gram per tonne gold and 6.6 grams per tonne silver over 2.0 metres (Assessment Report 15396).
Work History
The area has been explored in conjunction with the nearby Elan (MINFILE 104P 075) and Boomerang (MINFILE 104P 112) occurrences and a complete exploration history can be found there.