The Copper Queen occurrence is located on Owl Creek, north- northwest of Mount Currie. The region is underlain by the Upper Triassic Cadwallader Group which has been intruded by felsic plutons of the Jurassic to Tertiary Coast Plutonic Complex. The strata near the prospect consists of mainly lapilli, lithic and crustal tuff of andesitic composition. These are intruded by rocks of dioritic, quartz dioritic and granodioritic compositions. The prospect lies within a northwest trending shear zone exposed in Owl Creek.
Pyrite, chalcopyrite, malachite, azurite and molybdenite with minor magnetite and bornite occur as disseminations, blebs and fracture-fillings in quartz diorite, feldspar porphyry and dioritized volcanic rock. The host rock is propylitically and argillically altered. Both sulphide mineralization and hydrothermal alteration are thought to be related to the diorite intrusions.
Four named zones of copper mineralization— A (MINFILE 092JSE004), B (MINFILE 092JSE006), C(MINFILE 092JSE007), and D (MINFILE 092JSE014)—, have been explored at various times. The first exploration was A zone (Copper Queen adit), where a 70- metre adit and at least four diamond drill holes have tested copper mineralization. Grades up to 0.33 per cent copper from sampling a 66-metre length of the adit were obtained by Mining Corporation of Canada in the period 1963 to 19- 64. One drill hole cored by Pine Lake Mining in the period 1969 to -1972 intersected 182 metres of 0.2 per cent copper (Assessment Report 4623).
In the 1990’s and 2000’s, extensive exploration for base and precious metals was undertaken in the Tenquille Lake and Tenas Creek areas, located approximately 8 kilometres north of the Owl Creek property, by Teck Corp. and Goldking Mining Ltd. Structural and lithological controls for this area are similar to the Owl Creek area.
In November 2010, a program of geological mapping and rock geochemical sampling at the A and C zones confirmed the presence of significant amounts of copper as indicated by previous exploration. In A zone, the maximum value of the five samples collected was 1.985 per cent copper. The average content of the five samples was 0.73 per cent copper. These values, especially at the A zone, reflect near- surface enrichment in a copper carbonate cap that might overlie a sulphide deposit (Assessment Report 32271).
In January 2011, an airborne magnetic survey was flown over a portion of the property in the Owl Creek Valley. A subtle magnetic low signature was correlated with mapped dioritic zones known to coincide with the observed mineralization. Three dimensional modeling of these anomalies shows they are reflections of near-surface, localized bodies with a depth extent of approximately 300 metres (Assessment Report 32271).
Geological mapping was conducted on the Owl Creek property in August and September 2012. Results indicate the area of magnetic highs appears to be related to unaltered basalt, andesite and fine-grained diorite. Each rock type contains variable amounts of magnetite; however, significant copper mineralization was not observed in association with the rock units (V STOCKWATCH, October 24, 2012).
