The Jesmond limestone deposit is located 19 kilometres west-northwest of Clinton and is easily accessible by road. A 150 metre long quarry face has been developed on Lot 1284 along the east side of the Kostering Creek-Porcupine Creek valley, 14 kilometres northwest of Kelly Lake. The Kelly Lake limestone occurrence (092P 171) is situated 5 kilometres to the southeast.
The deposit lies on the western margin of a, 10 to 15 kilometre wide, belt of folded and faulted carbonates of the Middle to Upper Permian Marble Canyon Formation (Carboniferous to Jurassic Cache Creek Group). This belt extends north-northwest from Marble Canyon for 65 kilometres.
The quarry is developed in the fourth member of the formation (Geological Survey of Canada Paper 79-17), consisting of 200 metres of massive limestone with minor interbedded chert and argillite. The unit is locally folded into a pair of anticlines that form two parallel, closely spaced ridges extending northwest, from Two Mile Creek, for 14 to 15 kilometres. An overlying sequence of argillite, chert and mafic flows is preserved in the valley between the two ridges along an intervening syncline. A similar succession underlying the limestone outcrops to the east. At the quarry, the limestone is cut by several vertical faults striking 150 to 160 degrees. One of these, brings the limestone in contact with a sequence of argillite and conglomerate to the west.
The deposit is generally comprised of massive, light grey to dark greyish-brown limestone in alternating lighter and darker layers. The quarry exposes massive, fine grained, light grey to white and grey, mottled limestone containing scattered crinoid remains. The rock is contaminated with some thin quartz veinlets and dark chert inclusions just above the quarry face. In thin section, the limestone is comprised mostly of calcite with some grains and veinlets of quartz. Five chip samples collected in succession over a total length of 150.0 metres averaged 54.79 per cent CaO, 0.45 per cent MgO, 0.88 per cent insolubles, 0.40 per cent R2O3, 0.11 per cent Fe2O3, 0.0038 per cent MnO, 0.068 per cent P2O5, 0.0026 per cent sulphur and 43.42 per cent ignition loss (Geology, Exploration and Mining in B.C. 1970, page 502, Samples 1 to 5).
Reserves (in tonnes) with average grades (in per cent) have been estimated for the following three zones (Industrial Mineral File - Rourke, T.A., 1971, pages 7-9);
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Reserves CaO MgO SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 Sulphur Ig. Loss
Zone A 3,600,000 55.17 0.27 0.35 0.23 0.08 - -
Zone B 270,000 55.44 - 0.10 - 0.02 - 44.10
Zone C 270,000 53.17 0.97 0.96 0.54 0.40 0.05 43.90
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The quarry site (zone A) lies on the west flank of the eastern anticline (the west slope of the eastern ridge). Zones B and C lie along the axial trace of the western anticline (the crest of the western ridge). Zone B is situated 700 metres southwest of zone A and zone C is 1200 metres south of Zone A. The ridge crest containing zones B and C is estimated to contain a total potential of 36 million tonnes of limestone over a strike length of 600 metres (Industrial Mineral File - Rourke, T.A., 1971, page 9).
The property was initially explored by Jesmond Limestone Corp. and Ramshead Quarries, in 1970. Malibu Metals Ltd. conducted detailed mapping, sampling and 305 metres of diamond drilling in 1971.
