The TEXTBOOK showing is located on the upper west flanks of Mount Burns, 9 kilometres southwest of the village of Wells.
The showing occurs 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.
Rocks consist of foliated, gritty to fine-grained quartzites +/- sericite and finely laminated siltstone and phyllite +/- sericite. Spotty chloritic alteration is common and silicification is apparent adjacent to fault structures. Carbonaceous and calcareous siltstones have also been observed.
Exploration by Gemco Minerals Inc. on their Burns Mountain claim group, in the Wells area, identified the Textbook Vein. It is located near the divide of Burns Creek and Perkins Gulch. There is a highly foliated and folded greenish grey quartzite and phyllite. The fold axial plane plunges toward 138 degrees at a shallow angle. Mineralized quartz vein float occurs in the road cut area and a 4 to 6 inch wide mineralized vein contains visible gold, massive galena and other sulphides in place. Two grab samples from the vein assayed 23.5 grams per tonne Au and 1.17 grams per tonne Au. Nearby quartz vein float samples assayed 69.5 grams per tonne Au, 27.4 grams per tonne Au and 10 grams per tonne Au. One of the float samples was described as rusty, oxidized with 5 to 10 per cent pyrite stringers and massive galena (Assessment Report 32340).
Placer gold fineness of 914 is reported for Burns Creek which is believed to be the highest in the area.
Gemco Minerals Inc. acquired Mount Burns claim group from Firstline Recovery Systems Inc in 2006. The property extends southeast from Mount Nelson, across Lightning Creek to Mount Burns and Mount Amador and west to Grub Mountain. An aggressive trenching and prospecting program followed up with and supported by geophysics was conducted over several areas of the large property.
The 2010 program concentrated on trenching and geochemical sampling of rock exposures and old mine sites on Mount Burns. Thirty-seven of 236 rock samples collected assayed greater than 1 gram per tonne gold. Persistent anomalous values were obtained from the Spider Vein, Perkins, Cohen Incline and Textbook showing areas on Mount Burns. Grab sample 189524 from a mineralized quartz vein at the Textbook showing assayed 1.17 grams per tonne gold, while nearby float sample 189523, containing cubic pyrite and galena, returned a value of 69.5 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 32340).
Further trenching in 2011, along with self potential surveys in the Mount Burns area, exposed three rock samples with greater than 1 gram per tonne gold to the northeast and west of the Cohen Incline, approximately 800 metres southwest of the Textbook showing, and several specimens contained visible gold in quartz veins.
In 2012, Gemco Minerals Inc. conducted a Phase 1 bulk sample testing of the Perkins workings, approximately 1 kilometre southeast of the Textbook showing, to determine whether the old tailings could be further processed economically. The on-site processing successfully created a fine pyritic concentrate with an estimated 90 per cent recovery (Assessment Report 34431).
