The Wolf prospect is located on the west side of Morrison Lake, 20 kilometres north-northeast of Smithers Landing (Babine Lake). The property has been explored since 1965 when it was staked as the Bee claims. The Morrison deposit (093M 007) occurs to the southeast.
A granodiorite stock containing phases of quartz monzonite and hornblende biotite feldspar porphyry of the Eocene Babine Intrusions cuts grey, locally graphitic siltstones of the Middle to Upper Jurassic Ashman Formation (Bowser Lake Group). A north-northwest trending block fault separates Ashman Formation rocks from volcaniclastic sandstones and tuffs of the Jurassic Smithers Formation (Hazelton Group) on the east side of the property. The Newman fault, associated with mineralization in the area, occurs just to the northeast of the claims parallel to the baseline.
At least nine copper occurrences, hosted in quartz monzonite, were documented before 1980.
Mineralization is associated with dikes of biotite feldspar porphyry where chalcopyrite occurs as fine grained disseminations, fracture coatings, quartz veins and rarely as sulphide-rich veinlets to 3 millimetres thick in both the biotite feldspar porphyry dikes and nearby biotite granodiorite. Quartz veins occur throughout the biotite granodiorite and biotite feldspar porphyry dikes. Veins range from subparallel 1 to 3 centimetres thick white quartz veins to weakly developed stockworks of white, grey and banded quartz-chalcedony veinlets. Chalcopyrite, molybdenite and pyrite occur disseminated within quartz veins, as well as in sulphide-rich veinlets 3 millimetres thick.
Weak to intense argillic alteration occurs in zones up to ten metres wide throughout the biotite granodiorite and to a lesser extent in biotite feldspar porphyry dikes. The zones occur adjacent to gouge zones, fractures and quartz veins and are evident as chalk white, soft kaolinitic feldspar pseudomorphs in a tan-coloured matrix. Original biotite and hornblende phenocrysts are indiscernible. Sericite is present along fracture surfaces and locally throughout the matrix.
Copper mineralization is associated with secondary biotite that, in weakly altered rocks, forms partial replacements of hornblende. In the bottom of hole 93-1 and BFP dikes in hole 5, secondary biotite replaces all of the primary hornblende and forms bundles and aggregates of felty brown biotite throughout the matrix.
A drill hole in biotite feldspar porphyry intersected 1.2 metres grading 4.2 per cent copper (Assessment Report 8779).
Work History
In 1965, the tenure was acquired by Kerr Addison Mines Limited who conducted EM and geochemical surveys of unknown extent. They outlined a large EM conductor near Morrison Lake. Trenching on hillside revealed low grade copper-molybdenum mineralization in a body of granodiorite.
In 1967 and 1968, Tro-Buttle Exploration and Canadian Superior Exploration completed ten kilometres of grid lines, an IP survey, and five diamond drill holes (182 metres) near the west shore of Morrison Lake on the Kerr Addison EM conductor, which was thought to be a graphitic siltstone.
In 1976, the property was optioned by Cities Service Minerals Corporation who completed 19 kilometres of IP surveys.
In 1979, Noranda Exploration carried out a soil survey over part of the target area to test an airborne EM conductor resulting from work done in 1974. One angle hole (152 metres) was drilled near Morrison Lake intersected 1.2 metres of 4.2 per cent copper in biotite-feldspar porphyry (Assessment Report 8779). In 1988 Noranda collected 74 soil samples over three traverses across hornfelsed sediments and feldspar porphyry intrusions. Work was directed to a precious metal target but reports noted the porphyry copper potential of the prospect.
The claims expired in 1989.
Claims were staked by R. McMillan in 1992 with additional claims (Double R 3 to 8) staked by Phelps Dodge Corporation of Canada, later in the year. In 1993, Phelps Dodge completed 781 metres of diamond drilling in six holes over the main grid area and 141 line-kilometres of magnetic, electromagnetic and VLF-EM surveys. All holes encountered weak copper mineralization throughout with hole SH93-1 returning the most significant result of 15.9 metres grading 0.25 per cent copper (Assessment Report 22973). The geophysical survey was successful in outlining a prominent magnetic feature on the Double R 5 claims, possibly an untested Babine-type stock.
In 2011, Hi Ho Silver Resources Inc conducted a few days of prospecting on the Double-R property which encompassed the Wolf area. The program objective was to sample rust-stained rock outcrops that are visible from the air and coincident with induced polarization anomalies outlined by Cities Service Minerals Corporation in their 1976 survey. Four rock samples were collected but only sample 45204 was of significance, yielding 0.18 per cent copper, 0.008 per cent molybdenum and 0.6 gram per tonne silver (Assessment Report 32533). The sample was diorite/granodiorite containing visible sulphides.
In 2013, Ralph Keefe completed a program of rock and soil sampling on the Double R property. A rock sample (1043504) of oxidized and quartz-veined quartz porphyry intrusive subcrop, taken below a historical drill road to the west of the occurrence, yielded 0.088 per cent molybdenum (Assessment Report 34488).
In 2015, Quadra Coastal Resources completed an 84.0 line-kilometre airborne magnetic and radiometric survey on the property.
