The Hobson showing is located north of the Hobson Arm of Quesnel Lake on upper Spanish Creek, approximately 110 kilometres east of Williams Lake. Access is provided by paved road to the community of Likely from Williams Lake, with the remaining 20 kilometres accessed by the 1300 Spanish Lake forestry road.
The property lies within the eastern part of the Quesnel Terrane. This region is underlain dominantly by fine-grained metasedimentary rocks in contact with the Barkerville Terrane. The metasedimentary rocks are mainly dark grey phyllite and silty slate considered to be Middle to Upper Jurassic Nicola Group.
The Hobson showing is hosted in highly faulted, medium-grained, pale green quartz-chlorite schists grading to quartz-chlorite-sericite schists and greenstone (possibly metamorphosed andesite). These rocks are part of the Upper Paleozoic Crooked Amphibolite. The north-trending fault or shear zones contain carbonate-mariposite alteration zones. Mineralization consists of pockets of galena and galena with pyrite in quartz-carbonate veins. Barker Minerals Ltd. has targeted volcanogenic massive sulphide and gold vein mineralization styles (Assessment Report 33013).
Gold and base metals were targeted in the area as early as 1981 to 1983. A grab sample (#14) from the carbonate mariposite zone at Landing 3 assayed 1.0284 grams per tonne silver, 0.011 per cent copper and less than 0.1714 gram per tonne gold (Matherly et al., 1983, Prospecting Report, Hobson Claim Group). In 1988 and 1989, 4 square kilometres of soil surveying and prospecting was completed.
Between 1991 and 1993, owners S. Paterson and M. Matherly continued prospecting the property claims.
From 1994 to 1996, and in 1999, reconnaissance geophysics (self-potential) and geochemical sampling was conducted. Geophysical results were indicative of buried sulphide mineralization (Assessment Report 26755).
In 2001, trenching, rock sampling and geological reconnaissance mapping was completed on behalf of owners S. Paterson and M. Matherly. This work identified greenstone-hosted quartz-carbonate veining, with gold associated with arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite or galena. A few rock samples from this program assayed between 500 and 1000 parts per billion gold or greater (Assessment Report 26755).
In 2009, the Geological Survey of Canada flew an airborne geophysics survey across the Likely area, including the Spanish Creek property. Results indicated that the property is underlain by a large broad thorium-potassium high and potassium low. Barker Minerals Ltd. interpreted these results as comparable to other global examples of gold-bearing environments (Assessment Report 33989).
In 2011, Barker Minerals Ltd. undertook prospecting and a rock sampling program on the Spanish Creek property. A 50 by 60-centimetre angular massive sulphide boulder was found 200 metres downslope from a known copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold occurrence, near airborne magnetic and conductor anomalies. Two representative samples from the boulder assayed inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer values of 15.3 and 17.6 per cent copper, 6 and 7.2 per cent zinc, 0.17 per cent lead, 158 and 183 grams per tonne silver and 11.7 and 5.6 grams per tonne gold. Fire assay reported 9.6 and 0.14 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 33013).
In 2012, Barker Minerals Ltd. conducted soil and rock sampling along the Shiny Mineral Road. Semiquantitative X-ray fluorescence analysis assayed 15 soil samples with between 6 and 9 parts per million gold and four out of seven outcrop grab samples with between 6 and 13 parts per million gold (Assessment Report 33989).
