The JJ showing is located 13.4 kilometres southwest of Spences Bridge at an elevation of 1570 metres. The property can be accessed via the Botanie Lake Road, which is along Highway 12, approximately 1 kilometre northeast of its junction with the Trans-Canada Highway. An alternative access point may be gained via the Sleetis Creek Road, which is located approximately 9 kilometres from the start of Botanie Lake Road. The Sleetis Creek and Skoonka Forestry roads are linked via a 1.5 kilometre connecting road dubbed the “JJ Connector”, which was built in 2006 to allow easier access through the property and is where the JJ showing is situated.
Regionally, the northwest-southeast–trending Cretaceous Spences Bridge Group is part of the southern Intermontane tectonic belt of the Canadian Cordillera. The Spences Bridge Group volcanics are faulted against older plutonic and related metamorphic rocks of the Triassic-Jurassic Mount Lytton Complex. The dominant rock types within the area are subaerial andesite flows and tuffs, overlain by amygdule-rich basaltic flows. Minor felsic flows occur within these intermediate and mafic rocks, along with some sandstone, shale and conglomerate units. Stratigraphy is intruded by abundant Late Triassic and/or Jurassic to Miocene plutons. Metamorphic assemblages consist of Cache Creek Complex mélanges and Bridge River Complex metamorphic and ultramafic rocks. Quaternary sediments occur as thick drifts along the main rivers and some of the larger creeks. Major structural features in the region are steeply dipping normal faults, oriented subparallel to the western-bounding Fraser (River) fault system. The faults have two dominant trends: northwest-southeast and north-south (Assessment Report 34626).
Locally, the Spences Bridge Group is overlain by Tertiary mafic to felsic volcanics of the Kamloops and Princeton groups, which are in turn cut by small intrusions of intermediate composition. The Spences Bridge Group underlying the Skoonka Creek property is further divided into two assemblages, the Pimainus Formation and the Spius Creek Formation. Above the basal conglomerate, the Pimainus Formation is a predominantly volcaniclastic package comprising subaerial andesite ash, crystal, and lapilli tuffs (Assessment Report 29084). These flows are poorly sorted, weakly to non-bedded, and may contain up to 50 percent amygdules. Sandstone, shale, and conglomerate units can also be found alongside the andesite flows within the Pimainus Formation. The Spius Creek Formation overlies the Pimainus Formation and comprises amygdule-rich basaltic flows. Bedding is often apparent in the fine-grained tuff units throughout the property, oriented at a northwesterly strike and dipping between 0 and 40 degrees to both the northeast and southwest (Assessment Report 28182).
The JJ showing is composed of two main veins, Jan and Jodi, with several narrower veins running parallel to the north. The zone of veining is a corridor of moderate to intense clay alteration that persists along strike for 60 metres in an azimuth of 045 to 060 degrees and moderate dip (Assessment Report 28182). Specks of a dark-grey metallic mineral are also present within the veins, and have been identified as possible sulphosalt or telluride minerals associated with gold mineralization. Rare visible gold is also observed within the JJ surface trenches (Assessment Report 28182). Amygdules found within the andesite flows are commonly filled with quarts, epidote, or calcite. There are two styles of gold mineralization and alteration: (1) multi-stage massive, banded veins with associated breccia zones and intense proximal silica to distal argillic alteration and (2) narrow stockwork veinlets with disseminated pyrite and moderate silica, minor carbonate, limonite and clay alteration. The first style is well represented by the JJ and Discovery (MINFILE 092ISW105) showings, while the second style of mineralization is more typical of the Deadwood, Ember, Backburn and Zebra showings (Assessment Report 34626). Anomalous copper values are associated with gold. Alteration at the JJ showing occurs within the soil overburden as dark, rusty orange-brown clay-rich layers ranging from an average thickness of 0.1 to 0.2 metres and locally up to 2 metres. In outcrop, alteration envelopes adjacent to the JJ veins reach up to 4 metres wide and are bleached and highly fractured, represented by strong to locally intense argillic, silicic, and iron/manganese oxide alteration. There are also clay-rich gouge zones incorporated within the vein as lenses, which comprise dominantly white to locally yellow clay minerals and fragments of altered wall-rock (Assessment Report 29084). Hematite alteration is present, but likely not related to hydrothermal processes.
In 2004, nine channel samples were collected from six channels from trenching underneath a quartz rubble occurrence. The table below shows the rock sample results from hand trenching of the JJ veins (Assessment Report 27672).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Sample number Sample length (metres) Gold (grams/tonne) Silver (grams/tonne) SAM-R9H 0.30 9.15 6.0 SAM-R9 0.90 27.51 22.0 SAM-R9F 0.55 5.97 7.0 SAM-R10 1.05 12.79 13.0 SAM-R11 1.05 18.71 15.0 SAM-R12 1.10 39.24 30.0 SAM-R13 0.75 58.38 36.0 SAM-R14 0.95 38.09 27.0 SAM-R14F 0.30 4.49 4.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Four hand-dug trenches were completed along strike from the JJ zone to follow up on the original trench of the JJ veins identified in 2004, and returned an average grade of 22.8 grams per tonne gold over an estimated true width of 2.0 metres (Assessment Report 27672). Hand trenching in 2005 exposed the quartz vein system and returned average grades of up to 19.3 grams per tonne gold over 3.4 metres (2005-T3; Assessment Report 27672). Three trenches (2005-T1, 2005-T2 and 2005-T3) bracket the 2004 JJ trench and represent an exposed strike length of approximately 21 metres (Assessment Report 28182). Of 29 bulk channel samples collected, 28 returned greater than 100 parts per billion gold, including 10 samples in excess of 12 grams per tonne gold. Best averaged results, from northeast to southwest, are shown in the table below (Assessment Report 27672).
----------------------------------------------------------Trench Apparent width (metres) Gold (grams/tonne) 2005-T1 7.3 1.16 Including 2.3 2.08 2005-T2 1.4 13.9 2005-T3 3.4 19.3 ---------------------------------------------------------- |
A single trench was dedicated to an area where eight float and outcrop grab samples had assayed from 0.34 to 6.97 grams per tonne gold, located approximately 25 metres along strike to the northeast of trench 2005-T1 (Assessment Report 28182). This extended the northeast-striking JJ mineralized system over a total length of approximately 60 metres. The road trenching exposed a series of narrow quartz veins up to 0.5 metre in apparent thickness within a 1.5 metre wide mineralized zone. The best result (Sample 198351) is from the easternmost vein material at 9.78 grams per tonne gold over 0.80 metres (Assessment Report 28182).
The drillholes also had high gold values of 110.4 to 117.1 grams per tonne (SC-008) and 54.5 grams per tonne (SC-007) as shown in the following table (Assessment Report 27672).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Drill hole Interval (metres) Gold (grams/tonne) Silver (grams/tonne) SC-003 18.99 1.38 1.61 Including 1.00 16.6 8.60 SC-004 2.07 2.87 2.56 SC-005 1.60 12.4 6.00 SC-006 4.10 7.48 4.15 Including 1.25 16.2 5.76 SC-007 3.31 26.8 28.85 Including 1.57 54.5 56.75 SC-008 12.80 20.2 14.22 Including 2.91 51.1 46.49 and 1.30 110.4 100.46 and 0.75 117.1 49.20 SC-009 3.20 2.04 2.41 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
A regional silt geochemical survey was conducted and re-analyzed in 1994, identifying two gold anomalies (samples 815058 and 815059) located within the Skoonka Creek drainage and assaying 23 and 19 parts per billion gold, respectively (BC Regional Geochemical Survey (RGS) 40 or GSC Open File 2666). From 2003 to 2004, 63 rock, 41 stream sediment and 431 soil samples were collected upstream of RGS sample 815058 for geochemical analyses by Almaden Minerals Ltd. The JJ showing was discovered by trenching underneath a quartz rubble occurrence noted from soil sampling along road cuts in 2005 by Strongbow Exploration Inc. That same year they conducted 29 reconnaissance silt samples and 224 prospecting samples, followed by hand trenching of the JJ zone (43.5 metres at 1.5 metres width over 4 channels; 2 metres depth for 1 test pit), grid-based soil sampling (3588 samples), and a 12.4 kilometre ground magnetic and very low frequency (VLF) geophysics survey. Later that year, an 11 hole, 1258.4 metre drilling program tested the down-dip extension of the JJ veins and took 824 drill core samples. Detailed soil sampling identified a broad gold and arsenic soil anomaly coincident with mineralization, and a detailed ground geophysical survey recognized a linear magnetic low, corresponding to the alteration system surrounding the quartz vein system.
Strongbow Exploration Inc. has done all work on the property since 2006, collecting 76 silt, 4533 soil and 1472 rock samples, and conducting ground magnetic surveys totalling 206 line-kilometres, along with a 5.45 line-kilometre IP survey. Eighteen of the 21 holes drilled in 2006 (totalling 4403.29 metres) tested the JJ showing (drillholes SC06-012 to 023 and SC06-027 to 032) and extended the JJ mineralization over a strike of 750 metres and a depth of 250 metres (Assessment Report 29084).
The 2007 exploration program consisted of property-scale mapping, grid and trench soil sampling (2262 samples), surface to trench rock sampling (783 samples), mechanized and hand trenching (432 metres), ground geophysics (33.9 line-kilometres of magnetometer surveying), airborne geophysics (580 line-kilometre DIGHEM V survey), diamond drilling (3147 metres in 13 holes; 1129 core samples assayed) and road construction (1.46 kilometres; Assessment Report 34626).
In 2013 and 2015, Strongbow completed programs of geological mapping, prospecting and geochemical (rock and soil sampling) on the Skoonka property.
In 2017 and 2018, Westhaven Ventures completed programs of geochemical (rock and soil) sampling, 2376 line-kilometres of airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys, 31.8 line-kilometres of ground magnetic surveys, a 6 line-kilometre passive seismic survey and 29 diamond drill holes, totalling 11 882 metres, on the area as part of the Spences Bridge Group (SBG) of properties.
In 2019, Westhaven completed a program of prospecting, geochemical (rock and soil) sampling, petrographic and Terraspec analysis on select 2018 drillcore samples, a LiDAR survey, 327 line-kilometres of ground magnetic surveys, a 20.3 line-kilometre DC resistivity survey and 49 diamond drillholes, totalling 21 849.3 metres, on the Spences Bridge Group (SBG) of properties.
In 2020, Westhaven completed a further program of geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling, various ground geophysical surveys and 102 diamond drill holes, totalling 43 268.7 metres, on the Spences Bridge Group (SBG) of properties.
