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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  25-Jun-2013 by Karl A. Flower (KAF)

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NMI
Name VICTORIA (L.21G), ELMORE FRACTION, CANAMERA, COPPER CANYON (L.22G) Mining Division Victoria
BCGS Map 092B081
Status Past Producer NTS Map 092B13W
Latitude 048º 52' 02'' UTM 10 (NAD 83)
Longitude 123º 48' 33'' Northing 5413011
Easting 440659
Commodities Copper, Gold, Silver Deposit Types G06 : Noranda/Kuroko massive sulphide Cu-Pb-Zn
Tectonic Belt Insular Terrane Wrangell
Capsule Geology

The Victoria past-producer is located on the east bank of the Chemainus River, west of, and along the strike of, the Lenora-Tyee volcanogenic massive sulphide past-producers on Mount Sicker (see 92B 001).

The deposit is located within the Cowichan uplift, one of three geanticlinal uplifts that expose rocks of the Paleozoic Sicker and Buttle Lake groups on Vancouver Island. Cretaceous sediments of the Nanaimo Group unconformably overly the Paleozoic rocks; the contact is marked by a basal conglomerate containing volcanic fragments derived from the Sicker Group. The local stratigraphy is disrupted by folding, faulting (pre-Triassic as well as Tertiary) and the intrusions of gabbro and diabase sills and dykes (informally known as the Mount Hall Diorite) that are coeval with the Upper Triassic Karmutsen Formation.

The Sicker Group rocks mainly comprise felsic volcanic tuffs of the McLaughlin Ridge Formation. The rocks in the mine, and nearby, include graphitic schists and cherty sediments and tuffs which form a band within the rhyolitic volcanics. This is the same band of sediments which hosts the massive sulphides of the Lenora-Tyee deposit to the east. The strike of the sediments along the Chemainus River is about 080 degrees and the dip is 70 degrees south.

On the property a tunnel has been driven in for 46 metres at 110 degrees. From the end of the tunnel a crosscut has been run to the south for about 8 metres ending in diorite. Another crosscut was made to the north for about 11 metres in the schist, of which about 3 metres is mineralized with pyrite and chalcopyrite. A sample of this assayed 17.1 grams per tonne silver and trace copper and gold (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1902, page 253). On the steep banks of the river, outcrops of massive iron sulphides with a small amount of copper were exposed and tested by adits. Small pits have exposed quartz veins and stringers up to 75 centimetres wide mineralized with iron sulphides and chalcopyrite.

The mine has a combined production from 1904, 1905 and 1907 totalling 115 tonnes of ore, from which was recovered 124 grams of gold, 3,452 grams of silver and 4,346 kilograms of copper (Mineral Policy data). Details of the deposit and workings were not reported after 1902.

In 1998, a self potential geophysical survey was completed. In 2010 and 2011, Rock-Con Resources completed a program of prospecting and rock sampling on the Mount Sicker property. Chip samples, taken near the mouth of the adit, assayed up to 16.85 grams per tonne silver and 5.61 per cent copper (1E; Assessment Report 32278).

Bibliography
EMPR AR 1897-567; 1901-1118; *1902-239,252; 1905-250; 1907-221;
1916-312; 1920-222; 1928-365
EMPR BC METAL MM00059
EMPR EXPL 1977-E104; 1978-E120; 1979-122; 1988-C71
EMPR FIELDWORK 1987, pp. 81-91
EMPR GEM 1973-224
EMPR INDEX 3-217
EMPR OF 1988-8; 1999-2
GSC MAP 42A; 1386A; 1553A
GSC MEM 13; 36; 96
GSC OF 463
GSC P 1972-44; 1975-1A, p. 23; 1979-30
Carson, D.J.T. (1968): Metallogenic Study of Vancouver Island with
Emphasis on the Relationship of Plutonic Rocks and Mineral
Deposits, Ph.D. Thesis, Carleton University
Hudson, R. (1997): A Field Guide to Gold, Gemstone & Mineral Sites of
British Columbia, Vol. 1: Vancouver Island, p. 92

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