The Tiger occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1120 metres, south of Cedar Creek and approximately 2.3 kilometres northwest of Ainsworth.

Regionally, the area is underlain by hornblende schists, limestone and banded quartzite of the Upper Mississippian to Permian Milford Formation and basaltic volcanic rocks of the Carboniferous to Permian Kaslo Group. Granodioritic intrusive rocks of the Middle Jurassic Nelson Batholith are exposed to the west.

Rocks on the claims are grey knotted schist, with narrow interlayers of fine-grained grey limestone, of the Mississippian to Permian Milford Formation. A relatively thick layer of limestone continues northward from the Star property (MINFILE 082FNE026), and thin discontinuous layers found east of it contain the Tiger mineralization. The rocks dip to the west at moderate angles.

The mineralization is associated with two small faults striking northwest and dipping 60 to 70 degrees to the southwest. Veins along the fault contain galena, sphalerite, pyrite and minor chalcopyrite associated with quartz and siderite. Rusty-weathering siderite extends irregularly out from the veins into the limestone and locally carries sulphides. The veins and rusty siderite together form mineralized zones up to 1.2 metres thick. The zone in No. 1 adit is 6 metres long and the one near No. 3 adit is 30 metres long. Lenses with appreciable sulphides are generally less than 60 centimetres thick and follow the veins.

Approximately 300 metres to the south of the Tiger adits, at the Lily shaft, a finely-crystalline limestone, trending north 10 degrees west and 30 degrees west, hosts a fissure or shear zone, trending north 55 to 60 degrees west and dipping vertically. Oxidized dump material from the shaft is reported to host disseminated galena, sphalerite and pyrite. The shaft is reported to be approximately 7 metres deep.

Intermittent production from the Tiger occurrence, up to 1952, is reported to have totalled approximately 41.7 tonnes yielding approximately 60 grams of gold and 10 727 grams of silver (PF 001759).

Work History

The Tiger claim was Crown granted in 1893, and considerable work, including hundreds of metres of underground exploration, was done before 1912.

A small shipment of ore (22 tonnes) was made from the claim by T.B. Hansen in 1928 and 5785 grams of silver, 31 grams of gold, 4211 kilograms of lead and 2335 kilograms of zinc were recovered. There is no record of other work on the claim. The old workings are presently obscured by undergrowth. A diagram of the workings can be seen in Figure 30, Bulletin 53 (page 113).

In 1980, a program of soil sampling was conducted on the area by Locke Goldsmith. Two dump samples (Tig 1 and 2) yielded 11.47 and 0.37 per cent lead, 5.59 and 26.32 per cent zinc with 153.7 and 89.2 grams per tonne silver, respectively (Assessment Report 8701).

In 1982 and 1983, Golden Knight Resources Inc. conducted programs of underground and surface geological mapping, rock sampling and ground magnetic and electromagnetic surveys on the Tiger and Lily claims. In 1982, a 0.5-metre chip sample from the open raise in the No. 1 level assayed 21.9 per cent lead, 2.22 per cent zinc and 419.1 grams per tonne silver, and a 1 metre chip sample from a fault on the No. 1 level yielded 2.08 per cent lead, 5.4 per cent zinc and 78.9 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 10822). Also at this time, a collection of samples containing gossanous vein material from the dump of the Lily shaft yielded 13.90 per cent zinc, 0.13 per cent lead and 22.0 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 10822).

In 1985, Locke Goldsmith conducted a program of prospecting and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the New Jerusalem, Tiger and Lily claims. In 1996, a program of prospecting and geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling was conducted by George Addie on the area as the Silver Hoard property.

During 2007 through 2011, Goldcliff Resource Corp. completed programs of prospecting, geological mapping, geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling and an airborne geophysical survey on the regionally extensive Ainsworth Silver property. In 2012, David Wallach prospected and rock sampled the area as the Ainsworth property. In 2015, Goldcliff Resource Corp. conducted a program of prospecting, geological mapping, geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling and a 4.1 line-kilometre ground electromagnetic survey on the area as part of the Ainsworth Silver property.

In 2020 and 2021, Goldcliff Resource Corp. conducted a further program of geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling and a 508.0 line-kilometre airborne magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric survey on the Ainsworth Silver property.