The High Grade occurrence is located at an elevation of approximately 1000 metres on an east-facing slope, west of Quilchena Creek and approximately 2 kilometres south of the creeks’ mouth on Nicola Lake.

The area located immediately south of Nicola Lake is underlain by a belt of green to red porphyritic andesites and basalts of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group that strike north-northwest and dip steeply to the west. To the north of Nicola Lake is the Lower Jurassic Nicola Batholith, a quartz-diorite intrusive believed to be the source of quartz-carbonate veins carrying gold, silver and copper mineralization in a number of nearby deposits (Guichon, MINFILE 092ISE048). Trending north-northwest across the area is the Quilchena fault, a regional near-vertical shear zone with an apparent strike-slip displacement of 3 kilometres. Associated with this fault are numerous northeast- and some northwest-trending fractures.

Locally, copper mineralization is exposed in the High Grade trench, where a 2-metre wide zone of strongly epidotized and extensively sheared volcanic rocks host bornite, chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite in irregular discontinous quartz-calcite stringers and as coarse disseminations in the andesite.

In the mid 1960s, a sample from the High Grade trench yielded 2.25 per cent copper (Property File - 810696).

Chip samples assayed trace gold and silver and 0.03 per cent copper (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1967).

Work History

During the 1960s, Quilchena Mining and Development Co. Ltd. is reported to have completed programs of trenching, drilling and some geophysical surveys on the area.

In 1970, Quilchena Mining and Development Co. Ltd. completed a program of soil sampling and a 15.0 line-kilometre ground magnetic survey on the area as the Sunnyboy claims of the Quilchena property.

In 1973, Telstar Resources completed a program of prospecting, geological mapping and rock sampling on the area immediately south of the occurrence as the Telstar property.

In 1979, Leonard Peckham completed a program of rock sampling on the area immediately south of the occurrence as the Sunny Boy property.

In 1983, a ground electromagnetic and magnetic survey was completed on the area as the Sunny Boy and Guy mineral claims.

In 1986, Iota Explorations Ltd. completed a program of trenching and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the area as the Iota property. In 1989, a program of rock sampling and a 20.8 line-kilometres ground magnetic and electromagnetic survey on the area.

In 2009, a program of prospecting and sampling was completed on the area by Julia Wang as the Iota property.

In 2014, Tech-X Resources Ltd. completed a program of geological mapping and rock sampling on the area as the Augusta claims of the Nicola Lake property. The following year, a 12.0 line-kilometre induced polarization survey was completed.