The Shel property is located in the Sicintine Range, 88 kilometres northeast of Hazelton, 3 kilometres south-southeast of Onerka Lake.
The property is underlain by northwest-striking, steeply dipping, fine-grained tuffs, argillites, greywackes and hornfels of the Lower Cretaceous Kitsuns Creek Formation (Skeena Group) cut by numerous granite porphyry and aplite dikes and a larger granite porphyry intrusion, all of which are probably related to the Late Cretaceous Bulkley Plutonic Suite. A granodiorite batholith of the Bulkley Intrusions underlies much of the Sicintine Range, northwest of the property.
Pyrrhotite, pyrite, magnetite, molybdenite and chalcopyrite are associated with the granite porphyry intrusion. Chalcopyrite occurs in fractures in hornfels near the granite porphyry dikes and is also found with molybdenite and quartz in the granite porphyry intrusion. A 15.2-metre chip sample from the granite porphyry intrusion assayed 0.02 per cent copper and 0.024 per cent molybdenum (Assessment Report 2084). Plagioclase is partially altered to sericite, kaolinite and carbonate. Biotite and hornblende are usually altered to chlorite and leucoxene.
WORK HISTORY
The first recorded work on the Shel property was conducted in 1968 and 1969 (Cook 1968, Wilton 1979). It consisted of geological mapping, soil sampling and prospecting by Cominco; there is sparse record of six drillholes that may have been sunk (Assessment Report 5348). The work appears to have been spurred by the presence of copper and molybdenum soil and silt anomalies as determined by a broader geochemical survey. In 1974, an induced polarization survey was conducted on the property for Craigmont Mines Limited, it delineated a number of induced polarization highs, which mainly coincided with soil anomalies from the 1969 geochemical program (Assessment Report 5348). No history of work exists between 1974 and 1978, when Cominco Ltd. conducted another induced polarization survey, mapping, and geochemical sampling (Assessment Reports 6849 and 8075). The results of the 1978 program led to a 733.7-metre drill program in 1979 that included four vertical holes (Assessment Reports 8075). Hole 79-2 intersected approximately 30 metres of economic (less than 0.1 per cent) molybdenum mineralization, which spurred further exploration (Assessment Reports 8075). In 1980, a total of 881.9 metres of BQ core was drilled from four vertical holes on the property (Assessment Reports 8452). These holes failed to intersect economic grades of molybdenum but did intersect broad zones of low-grade mineralization associated with fractures, quartz veins and brecciated zones in hornfels and quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusions. There is no record of work on the Shel claims between 1980 and the 2008 work of Paget.
In 2008 Paget Moly Corporation investigated their Shel property, which consisted of nine contiguous claims totalling 1812 hectares. Core from the 1979 and 1980 drill programs was observed. Two full traverses were completed and 12 rock samples were collected, including 11 grab samples and one 3-metre section of core from diamond drill hole 79-2. Molybdenum and copper are elevated in most samples. All samples that yielded significant molybdenum and copper concentrations were collected from quartz-feldspar-porphyry dikes, or the breccia/alteration zones around them. Molybdenum is most closely associated with quartz veining within quartz-feldspar-porphyry dikes. Copper is more closely associated with the contact between sedimentary rock and quartz-feldspar-porphyry dikes, where sericite alteration and concentrated pyrite and pyrrhotite veining occur. The Shel property was reported to be ‘impressively’ gossanous, resulting from weathering of metamorphic pyrite and pyrrhotite, which are abundant in metapelites, the main lithology on the property. Molybdenum and copper mineralization on surface exposures are restricted to quartz veins in quartz-feldspar-porphyry dikes and the narrow alteration zones and breccias that border the dikes. Although quartz-feldspar-porphyry dikes are present on approximately 5 per cent of surface outcrops, mineralization is not pervasive within the dikes; where mineralization does occur it is patchy and not continuous over economic widths. Molybdenum in the core is found mainly in quartz veins and as fine coatings on breccia clasts at the contacts between quartz-feldspar-porphyry intrusion(s) and country rock.
In 2017, United Mineral Services Ltd. contracted Peter E. Walcott & Associates Ltd. to complete an aerial magnetic survey over the Shel property. The survey consisted of 108 line-kilometres of airborne magnetics at 200-metre spacing with the goal of aiding exploration of porphyry style mineralization.
