The White Quail prospect is at an elevation of 1370 metres on the south side of Index Creek, which drains to the northwest of Redcliff Peak. Index Creek is a minor tributary of Gainer Creek, which flows southwest into Lardeau Creek. The White Quail (L.4577) claim is one of a linear, northwest trending belt of crown granted mineral caims that cover the Mollie Mac [082KNW036], White Quail [082KNW037], Hidden Treasure [0082KNW106] and Index [082KNW038] occurrences. The White Quail claim is at the mouth of Index Creek.
The White Quail tenure was crown granted in 1904 but saw only limited exploration in the early 1900s. By 1928, there were a few trenches and open cuts indicating the presence of an ill defined zone of mineralization conforming to the strike of the underlying rocks. The White Quail prospect was part of the Mollie Mac [082KNW036] property in 1929, and was explored for structural sites that might contain replacement deposits. In 1952, when Abco Mining Corporation Limited owned the prospect, there were several open cuts and an old adit, 12.2 metres long, that had to be cleaned out. In 1956, Northern Inland Resources Limited held several tenures on Index Creek and again stripped the surface showings. At that time, there were two adits on the property, approximately 36 metres apart, that were joined a short distance underground. There was also a caved adit at 1495 metres elevation on the nearby Star Fraction. The White Quail property was owned by L. Abrahamson in 1960. During 2006 through 2009, Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. completed programs of prospecting, geochemical (soil, silt, talus fines and rock) sampling and an airborne geophysical survey on the area as the Kootenay Arc property.
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 (EMPR 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 White Quail is in a similar stratigraphic and structural setting to the Hidden Treasure [082KNW106] and Index [082KNW038] prospects, with which it is clustered. The tenure is underlain by green phyllite, metatuff and (Molly Mac) limestone near the top of the Index Formation, and by black siliceous argillites, cherts and phyllites of the overlying Triune Formation. Upslope to the southwest, the section passes through Ajax quartzite into siliceous argillite and phyllite of the Sharon Creek Formation. The Triune and Ajax formations thin dramatically to the southeast and the Ajax Formation pinches out on the nearby Index claim (L.3956). The rocks are isoclinally folded and highly deformed. They have an axial plane schistocity that strikes to the northwest and dips at a steep angle to the southwest. The White Quail area is underlain by northwest striking and steeply southwest dipping, phyllitic schists that are interbedded with limestone. The mineralization occurs as replacements in altered limestone along the schist contact. The White Quail East and Star Fraction adits were driven into the limestone and show that it is variably altered to siderite and contains sparing disseminations of galena. A chip sample collected in 1933 assayed 34.3 grams per tonne silver, 0.69 grams per tonne gold, 26.3 per cent lead and 0.5 per cent zinc (Starr, Report on the Mollie Mac Group, White Quail Group and Hidden Treasure Group; 1933). The mineralization conforms to the strike of the underlying rock, and projects to the northwest towards the Mollie Mac [082KNW036] property. A sample taken across a width of 1.32 metres in an open cut in 1928 assayed 0.34 grams per tonne gold, 48 grams per tonne silver, 14 per cent lead and 1.1 per cent zinc. A "best grade" sample of sorted ore collected at the same time assayed 12.34 grams per tonne gold, 185 grams per tonne silver, 36.7 per cent lead and 1.6 per cent zinc.
Northern Inland Resources Limited held the property in 1957 but focused most of its attention on the Index claim [082KNW038]. There, it diamond drilled two holes that year and a further eight the following. The mineralization on the Index claim is thought to be similar to that found at White Quail. Disseminated pyrite, galena and sphalerite are found in siderite altered portions of the "Molly Mac" limestone.
