The IXL prospect is at 1500 metres elevation on the east side of Ferguson Creek, approximately 3.0 kilometres north of the community of Ferguson. The IXL (L.8710) claim is at the northwest end of a well-defined cluster of crown granted mineral claims that cover the Gyp [082KNW010], Nettie L. [082KNW100] and Ajax [082KNW099] past producing mines. The tenure is on strike with the shear structure that controls those deposits and is presumed to be cut by it. The claim is immediately to the northwest of the Gyp Fraction (L.5691) and May Bee (L.4953) claims.
It is unclear how much work has been done on the tenure as Gunning (GSC MEM 161) appears to describe workings on the "Gyp Fraction" as being on the "IXL Fraction", which causes some confusion between these two adjacent claims. The description of work given below may contain information that more properly relates to the Gyp property, to the southeast.
The Nettie L., Gyp Fraction, May Bee, Ajax, and other claims were located in 1892 by Mr. W.B. Pool, who later formed Great Western Mines Limited to develop them. The IXL Fraction is on the northern periphery of the Nettie L. mine area, and has been intermittently explored. The IXL adit appears to have been driven in 1899 and a drift, two crosscuts and a raise were added by 1930.
In the late 1980s, Nortran Resources Limited conducted an airborne electromagnetic and magnetometer survey, and ground-based geological,geochemical and geophysical surveys over a large block of ground around the Nettie L. [082KNW100] and True Fissure [082KNW030] deposits. The IXL workings were then on the Drifter Claim in the northwestern part of their claim block. In 1993, Contiki Resources Limited took an option to acquire 80 percent of Nortran's interest in the property package.
The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.
The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPE BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.
The IXL, Gyp, Nettie L. Ajax and other crown granted tenures on Nettie L. Mountain cover a northwest trending "ledge", approximately 18 metres wide, that contains quartz-carbonate veins containing pyrite, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite, and values in gold and silver. The surface trace is marked by an oxidized "iron cap" that is readily visible through thin cover. The area is underlain by siliceous argillites of the Triune and Sharon Creek formations, by quartzite of the Ajax Formation and by grits and black phyllites of the lower part of the Broadview Formation. The rocks are folded, deformed and locally highly schistose. The main area of mineralization, encompassing the Gyp, Nettie L. and Ajax property is bounded on the northeast by the Cup Creek fault, on the southwest by the (probably faulted) base of the Broadview Formation, and on the southeast by the Brow Fault. The zone is 1000 metres long and 200 to 250 metres wide, and covers a portion of the core of the Silver Cup anticline. This is a regionally important isoclinal fold that is over-turned to the southwest and plunges at 25 degrees to the northwest. It imparts an axial plane cleavage that strikes to the northwest and dips at 60 degrees to the northeast. The rocks are cut by axial plane shears and northeast trending cross faults. One of the latter displaces the anticline between the Nettie L. and Ajax workings. The ore lenses are controlled by faults and drag folds in the core of the fold structure.
In the Nettie L. [082KNW100] past producing mine, they are also found in cross faults. The structure is complicated by locally large displacements on post-mineral faults in the plane of the "main lead".
On the IXL claim, the vein is 0.91 to 1.22 metres wide and cuts at an oblique angle across a narrow belt of dark graphitic schists and silicified limestone that strikes at 160 degrees and dips steeply to the northeast and, locally southwest. The area is much disturbed by faulting. The vein strikes at 115 degrees and is vertical. It is intersected from the east by several small quartz-filled cross fissures that are mineralized with quartz, galena, chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite. The main adit, driven in 1899 at 1500 metres elevation, is 122 metres long. It follows the vein, which has a narrow streak of galena and sphalerite along its footwall side for a length of 30 metres. In places, the streak swells to form small lenses. In 1925, a sample collected across a 0.15 metre wide vein assayed 3.77 grams per tonne gold, 476.6 grams per tonne silver 16.5 per cent lead and 33.4 per cent zinc. A few years later, there were two crosscuts and a 10 metres raise. At that time, in 1930, a sample across a 0.30 metre wide structure assayed 2.74 grams per tonne gold, 82.3 grams per tonne silver, 3.1 per cent lead and 1.1 per cent zinc. Also, a streak across 0.46 metre of pyrite and quartz in the main drift north of the stope ran 2.06 grams per tonne gold and 24.0 grams per tonne silver.
Nortran Resources Limited did not pursue the IXL prospect with any particular vigour, but reported that samples from the muck piles and exposed mineralization assayed between 0.68 and 6.51 grams per tonne gold, along with 75.4 to 538.3 grams per tonne silver, between 1 and 19.8 per cent lead, and 2.8 to 35.1 per cent zinc.
