The O-Ray occurrence is part of the Iron Range showings which are located near the crest of the ridge that is west of and parallel to the Goat River. The location is centred on an early 1900s shaft on the O-Ray claim, about 1.5 kilometres north of the headwaters of Crackerjack Creek.
The regional geology, deposit description and local geology is similar to that of the American Flag occurrence (082FSE016) which lies approximately 400 metres to the north.
Massive to disseminated hematite, with local magnetite, occurs within the Middle Proterozoic Middle Aldridge Formation (Purcell Supergroup) along the north trending, subvertical Iron Range fault zone. The Aldridge Formation in the vicinity of the showings consists of well bedded quartzofeldspathic wacke and laminated siltstone, intruded by gabbro of the Moyie intrusions (Purcell Supergroup).
An ultrabasic breccia dike crops out on or near this property (Brown and Stinson, Fieldwork 1994, page 119); it is described as having an irregular outcrop pattern and width of 0.3 to 1 metre. It contains abundant, rounded inclusions of carbonate, possible ultramafic lithologies, and xenoliths of Aldridge Formation. There are petrographic similarities to diatreme breccias in the Golden area, which are ultramafic lamprophyre and alnoite. One of the dikes on the northern part of the Iron Range yielded a Late Carboniferous potassium-argon date of 301 +/- 10 million years.
At this occurrence, the iron zone is 5.5 metres wide and a representative sample contained 55.2 per cent iron (Geological Survey of Canada Economic Geology Series 3). The wallrock on both sides of the mineralized zone is quartzite heavily impregnated with iron.
Work History
The original Iron Range prospect was discovered and staked in 1897 along an extensive belt of iron oxide showings. In 1939, the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada Ltd.—with its parent company, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR)—acquired many of the historic Crown grants on the northern part of Iron Range Mountain. The claims were evaluated by CM&S (later known as Cominco Ltd., then Teck Cominco Ltd. and now Teck Ltd.), to assess the potential for a large iron resource. In 1957, Cominco Ltd. completed an extensive trenching program exposing the Iron Range structure and mineralization over more than 4 kilometres strike length. Most of the Iron Range Crown grants were held by Cominco–CPR until 1999, when they were reverted after being held privately for over 100 years. Eagle Plains Resources Limited restaked the original Crown grants on the day they lapsed.
Initial fieldwork by Eagle Plains consisted of a property-scale wide-spaced soil geochemical survey, rock sampling and geological mapping. The work identified iron oxide copper-gold indicators associated with the main Iron Range structure in the area of the historic trenches and along the projections of structural splays. Fieldwork also identified Sedex-style geochemical anomalies along the surface trace of the Lower to Middle Aldridge Contact, the time-equivalent to the Sullivan silver-lead-zinc deposit. In 2004, three drill holes, totalling 570.4 metres, were completed on the Iron Range property.
In 2005, Eagle Plains completed four diamond drill holes to test the Lower to Middle Aldridge Contact. All of the holes intersected "Sullivan smoke", including albite and tourmalinite alteration, fragmentals and disseminated and locally laminated and/or bedded sulphides at or near Sullivan time. One of the holes, IR05-003, returned values of 3.83 grams per tonne gold and 46 grams per tonne silver over 2 metres in a fault breccia believed to be a splay from the main Iron Range fault system. Eagle Plains included a high-resolution versatile time domain electromagnetic geophysical survey, detailed soil sampling and trenching (www.eagleplains.bc.ca).
During 2007 through 2009, the exploration focus shifted to evaluating the main Iron Range faults in the area of the historic Cominco trenches. In 2008, twenty diamond drill holes, totalling 1,683.9 metres, were completed on the Iron Range property. The 2008 drilling by Eagle Plains intersected 51.52 grams per tonne gold and 2.39 grams per tonne silver over 7 metres in a drillhole collared adjacent to the historic O-Ray iron oxide showing. Follow-up drilling of seven diamond drill holes, totalling 579.2 metres, by option partner Swift Resources in 2009 intersected 1 metre of 22.5 grams per tonne gold in a drill hole collared in the same area (www.eagleplains.bc.ca).
In September 2010, a two-hole diamond drilling program was initiated and designed to test a potential Sedex target. Hole No. 2 intersected a significant interval located at or near the Sullivan Horizon, containing pervasive tourmaline and albite-altered sediments interlayered with discrete conformable bands of pyrite, pyrrhotite (iron) and chalcopyrite (copper) sulphides (www.eagleplains.bc.ca).
In 2010, ten diamond drill holes, totalling 3,373.0 metres, were completed on the Iron Range property.
In 2011, Providence Resources Corp. and Eagle Plains Resources Ltd. completed a systematic compilation and analysis of historical soil geochemistry data on the Iron Range property. The analysis confirmed that the property displays an anomalously high background metal endowment and demonstrated that the entire property is prospective for gold mineralization in addition to the traditionally explored Sullivan-style lead-zinc mineralization (V STOCKWATCH, January 17, 2012). Also in 2011, a program of geochemical (soil and rock) sampling, an airborne ZTEM geophysical survey and nineteen diamond drill holes, totalling 7,150.8 metres, were completed on the Iron Range property.
In 2012, a six-week 2411-metre diamond drill program was conducted on the Iron Range property. Highlights included Drillhole IR12-035, which intercepted a 28-metre alteration zone containing elevated gold, silver, zinc, lead and arsenic associated with brittle northeast-trending faults. The best intercept consisted of 7 metres grading 0.19 gram per tonne gold and 1.29 grams per tonne silver (V STOCKWATCH, July 30, 2012).
