The Lone Bachelor property is situated on Shea Creek on the southwest flank of Carpenter Creek Valley. The underground workings are on Crown grant Lot 4564 at 1500 metres elevation. It adjoins the Victor (082FNW204). See also Palmita (082FNW012).
The Lone Bachelor claim was owned in 1901 by G.A. Petty, and in later years was included in the Victor group. It was worked under lease by several individuals from 1905 to 1912 and in 1914, 1917 and 1923. Nothing further was done until 1948 when the property, consisting of the Lone Bachelor, Archie, Dacy, Tommy and Ruth claims, was acquired by Violamac Mines Limited. In 1952 Lone Bachelor Mines Limited was formed to develop the property.
The old workings consisted of 4 adits, Nos. 1 to 3, and a higher "A" adit, which developed the Lone Bachelor vein through a vertical distance of 68 metres and a horizontal distance of about 305 metres. The levels were interconnected by raises, and the workings comprised about 914 metres of drifts and crosscuts.
A new adit, No. 4, begun in 1951 at an elevation of 1280 metres was, by the end of 1953, driven 289.5 metres. Four veins, Nos. 1 to 4 were intersected in the adit at distances of 115.8, 141.7, 160 and 233 metres respectively from the portal. Some drifting was done east and west on No. 2 vein and west on No. 4. Also in 1953 some underground diamond drilling was carried out, a raise driven to connect No. 4 to the old No. 3 level, and a sublevel established 22.8 metres above No. 4 level. In 1954 this sublevel was extended and No. 3 adit cleaned out. During 1955 the sublevel was extended a further 61 metres along a narrow vein containing small lenses of galena, to a full length of 198 metres. The property was only worked to a small extent during 1954 and 1957, and until 1961 was operated under lease.
Regionally, the area lies on the western margin of the Kootenay Arc, in allochthonous rocks of the Quesnel Terrane. In the vicinity of the occurrence, the Quesnel Terrane is dominated by very fine grained clastic sedimentary rocks of the Upper Triassic Slocan Group that include locally weakly metamorphosed argillite, quartzite, limestone and some tuffaceous rocks. These sedimentary rocks are intruded by dikes, sills and stocks of varied composition and origin. Permian and/or Triassic Kaslo Group metamorphosed volcanic rocks occur to the north of the Slocan Group rocks. Middle Jurassic Nelson intrusions are immediately south of the Slocan Group and are inferred to be the source of granitic to pegmatitic sills and dikes found in the area. The Nelson intrusions comprise at least six texturally and compositionally distinct phases ranging from diorite to lamprophyre. The most dominant phase is a medium to coarse grained potassium feldspar porphyritic granite (Paper 1989-5).
The occurrence is hosted by predominantly black and locally calcareous argillite and quartzite of the Slocan Group. The sedimentary rocks have been folded, fractured, faulted and regionally metamorphosed to greenschist facies. The regional northwest trending asymmetric Slocan syncline is thought to be Middle Jurassic and is the first recognizable deformation in the sequence. Several fault structures are evident and host vein mineralization. Later stage normal and thrust faults and shearing have chopped, deformed and remobilized the veins and mineralization. Drag features are also present.
The sedimentary rocks have been folded about an axis that strikes southeast and plunges 10 to 20 degrees northwest. The Lone Bachelor vein lies in a tensional fault that resulted from the folding of the strata, and is perpendicular to the fold axis. The vein strikes 035 to 065 degrees and dips steeply southeast. It has been explored with at least four adits on the Lone Bachelor claim. The vein is 1 to 2 metres wide and comprises crushed fragments of wallrock, gouge and veinlets of galena and sphalerite mixed with calcite. The proportion of sphalerite to galena appears to increase with depth and minor amounts of pyrite, chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite are also present.
Production from the Lone Bachelor between 1905 and 1961 yielded about 4788 kilograms of silver, 615,819 kilograms of lead, 108,798 kilograms of zinc, 522 kilograms of cadmium and about 1 kilogram of gold from 1820 tonnes mined.
