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File Created: 24-Jul-1985 by BC Geological Survey (BCGS)
Last Edit:  26-May-2009 by Karl A. Flower (KAF)

Summary Help Help

NMI 093E5 Au1
Name SMITH-NASH, SMITH, NASH, BEAVER, KEMANO Mining Division Skeena
BCGS Map 093E042
Status Developed Prospect NTS Map 093E05E, 093E12E
Latitude 053º 29' 29'' UTM 09 (NAD 83)
Longitude 127º 44' 35'' Northing 5927671
Easting 583391
Commodities Gold, Silver, Copper Deposit Types I02 : Intrusion-related Au pyrrhotite veins
I05 : Polymetallic veins Ag-Pb-Zn+/-Au
Tectonic Belt Coast Crystalline Terrane Stikine, Plutonic Rocks
Capsule Geology

The Smith-Nash occurrence is located on Sandifer Ridge about 14 kilometres southeast of Kemano. The main vein, Smith-Nash, was discovered by George Smith and Fred Nash in 1952. The main vein was sampled at this time and no further recorded work was completed until the area was claimed as the Beaver mineral claims in 1980 and sampling was continued by Bristol Resources Corporation. In 1989, Kemano Gold Corporation held the property and adjacent Kayo occurrence (093 070) as part of the Kemano Gold Project.

The claim area is underlain by the Hazelton Group rocks of either Triassic or part of or wholly belonging to the Paleozoic Era. The rocks consist of greenstone, metasediments, amphibolites, gneiss, and marble. Diorites and granites are exposed along the eastern margin of the Coast Range batholith and are part of the Mesozoic Coast Plutonic Complex.

The Smith-Nash vein is hosted by a sequence of greenstone, tuff, diorite sills, and/or intrusives, and metasediments, which are described as roof pendants. The metasediments include shallowly dipping, thinly bedded cherty sediments, hornfels, and quartzites which are capped by a metavolcanic sequence marked by sills and pegmatite lenses. The vein is contained within a fault zone that strikes 320 degrees and dips between 60 to 80 degrees west. It is exposed on a steep bluff were it outcrops between elevations of 1430 and 1500 metres, swelling up to 6.5 metres in width. The vein structure is enclosed in sericite schist and consists of lenses of quartz with blebs and disseminated pyrite, minor chalcopyrite, and malachite staining. Gold is intimately associated with the pyrite. In 1952, a 12.5 centimetre sample of massive pyrite from the Smith-Nash vein returned 99.76 grams per tonne gold and 51.6 grams per tonne silver (Property File Rimfire Hegman, B., 1983). In 1980, chip samples from the Smith-Nash vein, around elevation 1450 metres, assayed 0.14 to 19.89 grams per tonne gold, and 0.68 to 10.29 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 10747). Geological reserves of the Smith-Nash vein are 20,128 tonnes grading 10.3 grams per tonne gold (Consolidated Silver Standard Mines Ltd. Annual Report 1988).

Two other gold bearing quartz veins, the Copper or Barker Zone and the Lower Zone were discovered in 1986, below the main vein at elevation 1300 metres. In 1986, a 38 centimetre channel sample from the Copper Zone which hosts blebs and patches of pyrite, chalcopyrite, and malachite in a quartz vein, diorite host, assayed 8.09 grams per tonne gold, and 1.01 per cent copper. A grab sample hosting pyrite and minor chalcopyrite disseminated in quartz from the Lower Zone assayed 129.53 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 15677).

Bibliography
EMPR AR *1952-A97-98
EMPR ASS RPT 8834, 10086, *10747, 13420, *14752, *15677
EMPR BULL 42
EMPR EXPL 1981-326; 1986-C324-325
EMPR OF 1994-14
EMPR PF Placer Dome (Arndt, R.E. (1989-06-06): Summary Report - Geology, Geophysics Report with maps)
EMPR PF Rimfire (Hegman, B. (1983-01-01): Report - Beaver Claims)
EMR MIN BULL MR 223 B.C. 209
EMR MP FILE 503831
GSC MAP 1064A
GSC MEM 299
GSC OF 708
GCNL #163,#180 1988
N MINER July 13, 1972
Placer Dome File

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