The Railway occurrence is located north of Stokes Creek, approximately 2.7 kilometres northwest of Loon Lake.
The Cowichan uplift consist mainly of northwest trending volcanic-volcaniclastic-sedimentary rocks of the Paleozoic Sicker and Buttle Lake groups. These are bounded by younger mafic volcanics of the Upper Triassic Vancouver Group and sediments of the Lower Cretaceous Nanaimo Group. The Sicker Group stratigraphy is very complex with numerous intercalations and rapid lateral facies changes. The rocks are commonly schistose in the vicinity of faults with associated carbonatization and silicification.
A large gabbroic intrusion, likely coeval with Upper Triassic Karmutsen Formation (Vancouver Group) volcanism, cuts dacites and andesites of the Mississippian to Pennsylvanian Fourth Lake Formation (formerly the Cameron River Formation) and limestones of the Upper Pennsylavanian to Lower Permian Mount Mark Formation. The Fourth Lake and Mount Mark formations, formerly of the Sicker Group, have been reassigned to the new Upper Paleozoic Buttle Lake Group.
Coarse-grained massive pyrite occurs in seams and pods over an area 10 by 7 metres on a vertical rock-cut face. The pods are contorted and irregular in shape and up to 10 by 50 by 100 centimetres in size. They do not express consistent strike direction or lineations, but suggest, rather, a complex infolding within the enclosing rocks. The host rock consists of fine to medium-grained, multiphase diabase-gabbro intrusions which contain magnetite and pyrrhotite. A grab sample assayed 14.9 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 16138).
Veinlets are common throughout the rock but are most concentrated near the pyrite pods. Bleaching and sericitic alteration are adjacent to these quartz-carbonate-epidote veinlets. Malachite is associated with some veinlets, where a grab sample assayed 0.2 per cent copper (Assessment Report 16138).
Work History
In 1985, Reward Resources completed a program of geological mapping and geochemical sampling on the area as the Horne 2-4 claims. In 1986, Lode Resources explored the area as the Stokes 1-4 claims. A program of rock and soil geochemical sampling, geological mapping and a ground electromagnetic and magnetic geophysical surveys were completed.
In 2018, Lakewood Exploration Inc. completed a program of geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling on the area as the Lacy property.