The Belle North prospect is located near the summit of a 1946-metre high peak, 3.4 kilometres northeast of Kadah Lake and 7.25 kilometres northwest of the confluence of McClair Creek with the Toodoggone River. The prospect is 310 kilometres north of Smithers. It lies within the Omineca-Cassiar Mountains in the north-central portion of the Toodoggone gold camp.
The prospect is situated within a Mesozoic volcanic arc assemblage which lies along the eastern margin of the Intermontane Belt, a northwest-trending belt of Paleozoic to Tertiary sediments, volcanics and intrusions bounded to the east by the Omineca Belt and to the west and southwest by the Sustut and Bowser basins. Permian Asitka Group crystalline limestones are the oldest rocks exposed in the region. They are commonly in thrust contact with Upper Triassic Takla Group andesite flows and pyroclastic rocks. Takla volcanics have been intruded by plutons and other intrusions of the Early Jurassic Black Lake Suite and are in turn unconformably overlain by or faulted against Lower Jurassic calcalkaline volcanics of the Toodoggone Formation, Hazelton Group.
The dominant structures in the area are steeply dipping faults which define a prominent regional northwest structural fabric trending 140 to 170 degrees. In turn, high angle, northeast-striking faults (approximately 060 degrees) appear to truncate and displace northwest-striking faults. Collectively these faults form a boundary for variably rotated and tilted blocks underlain by monoclinal strata.
The Belle North prospect is underlain by volcanics of the McClair Member of the Toodoggone Formation. They consist mainly of green crystal tuffs (Assessment Report 10347) and greenish trachyte porphyry (Assessment Report 12966). They are described by Diakow, as heterogeneous lapilli and block tuff, andesitic flows, and numerous cogenetic dikes and subvolcanic plugs; minor mudstone and conglomerate (Bulletin 86, in press). Cutting these rocks are four well developed north-northeasterly striking fracture zones accompanied by variable degrees of silicification ranging from 1 to 32 metres wide.
The prospect consists of a quartz-barite vein structure. Its strike is 300 to 339 degrees and its dip 60 to 70 degrees north. The surface trace of this zone is roughly 450 metres long along strike and variable in width from 0.75 to 1.8 metres (Assessment Report 12966).
No mineralization was noted in nine hand trenches or in surface exposures of the vein. Solid bedrock was rarely reached but when intersected consisted of highly fractured, broken and weathered rock. Vein material, generally leached quartz-barite mud and rarely barite-rich quartz breccia, was exposed in varying degrees in all trenches.
Trenching, in 1983, traced a 0.6 to 3.7-metre wide zone of limonite-clay and quartz-barite veining to the southeast for approximately 240 metres before the vein was lost due to faulting. The vein strikes 123 to 159 degrees with dips ranging from vertical to 60-70 degrees north. A second narrow vein was identified 25 metres east and roughly paralleling the first vein.
In 1981, a rock sample (70581) of quartz and barite from the area assayed 0.265 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 9833). Also at this time, three samples (B-2 through -4) of limonitic rhyolite(?) breccia or silicified, brecciated, dacitic feldspar porphyry cut by a pyritized quartz porphyry dike yielded values of up to 6.7 grams per tonne silver and 0.184 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 10347).
In 1983, a rock sample (26805) assayed 0.81 gram per tonne gold and 5.8 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 11843). Also at this time, channel sampling of trenches yielded up to 1.96 and 1.20 grams per tonne gold with 10.9 and 10.5 grams per tonne silver over 1.0 metre each, respectively, in trenches A and I (Assessment Report 12966).
In 1994, a chip sample (145528) over 3.4 metres of gouge material in a trench yielded 0.45 gram per tonne gold and 10.7 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 23663). Also at this time, a chip sample (14519) from a quartz-sericite–altered feldspar porphyry associated with a shear zone hosting disseminated pyrite and galena, located approximately 650 metres to the north, yielded 0.13 gram per tonne gold, 4.5 grams per tonne silver, 0.254 per cent lead and 0.149 per cent zinc over 1.2 metres (Assessment Report 23663).
In 2012, a sample (1710235) of altered andesite from a former trench assayed 24.2 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 33556).
Work History
The Belle 1 and 2 claims were staked in April 1980 for Golden Rule Resources Ltd. Work carried out in April 1981 consisted of 44.6 kilometre of airborne VLF-EM and magnetic surveys. During the summer of 1981, ground follow-up consisted of helicopter-supported geological mapping and geochemical sampling.
In 1983, Taiga Consultants Ltd (on behalf of Golden Rule Resources) excavated a total of nine manually dug trenches completed on the Belle 1 claim. A total of 49 channel samples were collected from the trenches at one metre intervals. Semi-detailed geological mapping, prospecting, and sampling were carried out over the Belle 1 and 2 claims. A total of 24 rock samples were collected during this program and 368 soil samples were collected on a grid. The Belle 4 claim was staked in September 1983. Taiga continued their work in the summer of 1985. This program consisted of prospecting, geological mapping, grid-controlled soil geochemical sampling and trenching on the Belle 1, 2, and 4 mineral claims.
Work continued in 1986 as Golden Rule conducted a program of geological mapping, lithogeochemical sampling and grid-controlled soil sampling. In 1987, Golden Rule Resources Ltd. investigated previously outlined anomalous showings, with a limited program of lithogeochemical sampling and sampling from hand trenches.
In 1988, Golden Rule Resources (on behalf of Manson Creek Resources Ltd) carried out an exploration program on the Belle 1 claim (see Belle South (094E 096). Twelve trenches totalling 378 metres were excavated. This was a follow-up to encouraging results obtained in 1987. A linear feature with strike length 150 metres that is associated with gold/silver mineralization was delineated.
The Belle prospect was later encompassed by an expansion of the JD property.
Recent work on the JD property included rock and large scale soil sampling in 2012 by Tower Resources and aeromagnetic surveying by Duran Ventures in 2008. A few rock samples were collected in the Belle area by Tower. Tower's soil survey was very broad and covered the Belle prospect. The 2008 aeromagnetic survey also covered the prospect.
Refer to JD (Finn) (094E 171) for further JD property work history and geological details.
