The TOOP NUGGET mine, also referred to as the MARY CREEK mine, is located in the Mary Creek drainage a short distance upstream from its confluence with Alice Creek, approximately 6 kilometres northeast of the settlement of Cottonwood and 29 kilometres northeast of Quesnel. The Alice Creek former placer operation is located approximately 0.6 kilometres upstream on Alice Creek.
There are several placer gold deposits along the Cottonwood River and its tributaries, such as John Boyd Creek, Norton Creek, Mary Creek and Alice Creek, which have been worked since the 1860's. The deposits are located in benches ranging in height from about a metre to several metres above the present course of the river or its tributaries. The gold is derived from interstadial and pre-glacial deposits. The majority of the gold from the Mary Creek and Alice Creek area is hackly, irregular-surfaced coarse nuggets, leading to the opinion that the gold is locally derived and associated with local bedrock quartz veining.
The pre-Tertiary geology of this area consists of mafic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Nicola Group of the Quesnellia terrane. The area is regionally underlain by argillaceous sediments and felsic volcanics of the Nicola Group. Gabbroic dikes intrude the argillite in the Toop pit.
The varying degrees of wearing of the gold particles suggest both proximal and distal sources. Most of the gold recovered is from lower interglacial or preglacial gravels, but inter-till and early post-glacial gravels have also produced gold. Some rich pay zones uncovered by miners were said to contain nuggets up to 100 grams in size from the lower gravels. A distinctive auriferous, light brown to orange stoney-clay sequence up to 4 metres thick occurs below the glacial deposits at the Toop Nugget occurrence. At the pit there were 3 distinct stoney-clay units separated by light grey, clayey ash-like layers. The stoney-clays overlie argillite bedrock and are overlain by a cemented gossanous gravel, which in turn is overlain by glacial deposits. Supergene leaching of gold, dispersed by Tertiary deep weathering and followed by Cenozoic erosion, is the likely explanation for the occurrence of coarse gold nuggets in Quaternary sediments (Exploration in British Columbia 1989, page 147).
Production at the Toop Nugget mine was from a basal paleochannel on bedrock with an average thickness of 1.5 to 7.5 metres across a channel width of 53 to 76 metres. The channel extends at least 488 metres along Mary Creek, between Alice Creek in the west and Norton Creek in the east. The mine produced 6000 ounces (186.62 kilograms) at an average grade of 6.2 grams per cubic metre.
Gold from the Toop Nugget (Mary Creek) placer deposit, discovered by Terry Toop in 1969. From 1969 to 1977, the Toop family opened up the discovery deposit on Mary Creek with small conventional mining equipment. J. Sefel and Associates optioned the Toop properties in 1978 and drilled 33 hammer drill holes with limited results. Test pits and 488 metres of stripping were also achieved on the south flank of Mary Creek. Dynamar Energy Ltd. conducted bulk testing in different locations throughout the Toop properties in 1980.
In 1988 Cumorah Resources bulk tested selected areas of a tailings pile from the Toop Mine, showing recoverable gold values. In 1990, Farrow Development Corp. conducted test exploration programs throughout the Toop properties. Numerous placer exploration efforts, including prospecting, soil and rock sampling, 2 D resistivity, IP and magnetometer surveys and airborne electromagnetic and magnetic surveys have been conducted by various tenure holders around the Toop Nugget mine between 2011 and 2017.
