The Yahk Mountain Zone is located from the summit of Yahk Mountain south into the headwaters of an unnamed creek, approximately 16 kilometres southeast of Moyie. The showing was discovered in 2010 by Kootenay Gold Inc. as a part of the KRL mineral claims of the Silver Fox property. Previous work in the area has centred on the Silver Pipe (082GSW058) occurrence and more recently the Jake and Snake veins of the KRL property.
The Yahk Mountain area is underlain by Proterozoic Belt-Purcell Supergroup sediments consisting of quartzite, siltstone and argillite of the Creston Formation. These have been intruded by gabbro-diorite Moyie sills and dikes, which are associated locally with mineralized base and precious metal veins. Structure in the area is mostly east-west trending as evidenced by veins and cleavage, bedding tends to undulate, but is mostly shallow dipping.
Locally, stratabound copper mineralization is hosted in silicified and carbonatized Upper Creston laminated siltstone, sand lenses, a vitreous quartzite unit and also within a strongly leached Middle Creston quartzite. Copper mineralization occurs as blebs of chalcopyrite within the vitreous quartzite and as concentrated masses along primary bedding structures within sand lenses in silicified laminated green siltstone. Two areas were seen to have quartz-chlorite breccia float boulders with copper and lead mineralization. The character of the float is very similar to the mineralization at the Silver Pipe area and could represent the development of another east-west vein system along the St. Eugene trend.
In 2011, sampling returned values up to 0.55 per cent copper, 14 grams per tonne silver, and 0.208 gram per tonne gold (samples SK10378 and SK10-380) (Assessment Report 32181).
During 2007 through 2013, Kootenay Gold completed a program of geological mapping, rock and silt sampling, a 500-line-kilometre airborne magnetic survey and a 500-line-kilometre seismic survey on the area as the KRL claims, Silver Fox property.
In 2015, Kootenay Silver Inc. continued mapping in the Jake Ridge (082GSW109), KRL (Jake (082GSW070) and Snake), Oke Creek areas; the Middle block which included Yahk Mountain to Haller Creek; and the South block which included the Gilnockie (creek) to North Ward (082GSW089) area (Assessment Report 36022). Also in 2015, Kootenay Silver collected 229 rock samples and conducted prospecting. Prospecting was focused on three areas during the program, from north to south they were the Jake Ridge (082GSW109), Yahk Ridge (082GSW072), and Ward Creek (082GSW105) areas (Assessment Report 35769 and 36064). Several small copper showings were documented and subsequently added to MINFILE (see 082GSW099 to 110).
In 2016 Kootenay Silver Inc. collected 304 rock samples and conducted geological mapping, a 94-kilometre ground magnetic survey and a 38-kilometre ground electromagnetic (VLF) survey in the Yahk Mountain and Ward area. Rock sampling occurred in the Barkshanty Creek, 2.7 kilometres northeast of North Zone (082GSW086), along Yahk Mountain ridge (082GSW072), the Ranger Lake/Gilnockie Creek area, and the Ward area southeast of the North Ward showing (082GSW088) (Assessment Report 36545).
See North Ward (082GSW089) for further details of the Silver Fox property.
