The Foster Lodge showing lies within the Barkerville Terrane of the Omineca Belt. The Barkerville Terrane is in thrust contact with Triassic Quesnellia Terrane rocks to the west and Hadrynian to Lower Paleozoic Cariboo Terrane rocks to the east. The Barkerville Terrane in this region is underlain by the dominantly metasedimentary rocks of the Hadrynian to Lower Paleozoic Snowshoe Group. In this area the Snowshoe Group comprises limestone, phyllite and quartzite. These rocks have been regionally metamorphosed to greenschist facies.
A number of quartz vein showings occur in an area underlain mainly by micaceous quartzite, argillaceous quartzite and highly carbonate altered quartzose schist. In the vicinity of the original Foster Ledge are several quartz veins which are mainly less than 60 centimetres in width and which trend generally northerly with a westerly dip of about 70 degrees. Some of the quartz is mineralized with pyrite, galena and sphalerite. Visible gold has also been reported. Another vein, which is known as the Galena vein, occurs about 670 metres southwest of the Foster shaft and is mineralized with galena. The galena carries significant silver values. Other narrow quartz veins occur south of the Foster shaft, along and to the east of Oregon Gulch. These veins apparently carry low values of gold and silver. In general the veins on the Foster property occupy westerly dipping fractures belonging to a regional north-northeast trending system.
HISTORY
From Bulletin 26 on the Foster Ledge: “A number of quartz veins were found on Oregon Gulch Creek during the 1870s. The Foster Ledge, near the junction of the west branch of Oregon Gulch Creek, yielded some high gold assays, and in 1877 a shaft was sunk on it. Shortly after, an adit was driven northward just above the junction of the west branch of Oregon Gulch. A little additional work was done before Foster Ledge Gold Mines, Limited, acquired the claims in 1933. Since then, two other adits have been driven and some work done in the old adit near the Foster Ledge.” See Bulletin 26 for details.
In 1974 and 1975, Golden Ark Explorations Ltd. of Vernon completed 304 metes trenching and stripped an area of 540 square metres on Lot 10430 and10431 (see Chisholm (093H 035). Results were not published.
In 1984, Capell, P. and Fipke, C., conducted a preliminary heavy mineral geochemical survey for American Volcano Mineral Corp. on the Mt. Nelson property.
The area was relatively dormant until 1986 - 1987 when Winex Resources Inc. completed a comprehensive geophysical and geochemical program on their Mount Nelson property (Assessment Reports 15832 and 18011). Winex conducted Magnetometer-VLF-EM and soil sampling programs over a portion of what later became the Pine property and adjoining Foster Ledge workings. A ground magnetic survey measuring was performed, over the property’s south area covering Foster Ledge! Galena veins, Oregon Gulch, and Davis Creek and covered an area of about 1000 by 2000 metres. The most significant anomaly strikes NE-SW and is parallel to Foster Ledge veins. This anomaly also strikes toward the Acme showings (093H 054) to the southwest for about 1000 metres. In 1987, Winex examined the Foster Ledge workings. They found the area to be heavily forested with a good part of the old open cuts, waste dumps and placer tailing being covered. The Foster Ledge Upper Adit, Shaft and Lower Adit were either caved or flooded. Three samples of the wall rock at the Foster Ledge Upper Adit were collected. One sample taken from the dump at the Foster Shaft contained small amount of visible galena. The assays were not significant in gold or silver.
More recent exploration programs, since 1998, have been conducted on the area in conjunction with the nearby Perkins (MINFILE 093H 037) occurrence and a complete exploration history of the area can be found there.
In 2006, a grab sample (86110B) of quartz float from near the Foster’s East adit assayed 5.45 grams per tonne gold (Firstline Recovery Systems Inc. (2007-12-07): National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report Summary of Mineral Exploration Activities at the Mount Burns Claim Group).
