This minor lead showing is located on sample 922-112-79 on the western edge of the Puck 1 claim, in upper Driftpile Creek, 17 kilometres west-southwest of the confluence of the Gataga and South Gataga rivers in the Muskwa Ranges of the Northern Rocky Mountains (Assessment Report 7464, Figures 7a, 8c).

The occurrence is in the Gataga mineral district, in a belt of Paleozoic basinal-facies sedimentary strata known as the Kechika Trough, part of Ancestral North America (Exploration and Mining Geology, Volume 1, page 1; Geological Survey of Canada Map 1713A). The Gataga mineral deposits are characterized by stratiform sedimentary-exhalative barite-sulphide mineralization, which occurs at certain Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian stratigraphic horizons. The last are the most economically significant and are represented in the area by the important Driftpile Creek developed prospect (094K 066), 5 kilometres south of the Puck occurrence. Structurally, the region is deformed into a series of a northwest-trending folds and imbricate thrust faults.

Like the Driftpile Creek deposit, the Puck claims are underlain mainly by the Middle to Upper Devonian Gunsteel Formation (informal name) of the Devono-Mississippian Earn Group (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 373, Paper 88-1E, page 1; Insley, M.W. (1990) - thesis). This unit here consists of silver-grey weathering shale, mudstone and cherty argillite (Assessment Report 7290, 7464). The most important lithofacies in the unit is a baritic, siliceous mudstone and shale, which occurs in lenses 1 to 5 metres long and 2 to 30 centimetres thick. Locally it is calcareous and pyritic. This lithology outcrops in a zone approximately 1100 metres long, 400 metres wide, and which generally dips 65 degrees southwest. All rocks are complicated by tight folding. The Ordovician to Lower Devonian Road River Group also outcrops in the area.

This baritic facies of the Gunsteel Formation is favourable for hosting stratiform lead-zinc mineralization in the district, as it does at the Driftpile Creek deposit. However, no visible mineralization was found on the Puck claim, although the rock chip sample referred to was assayed at 0.12 per cent lead, raising the possibility of unexposed mineralization.

Work History

In 1977 and 1978, Welcome North Mines Ltd. completed programs of geological mapping, geochemical (soil and water) sampling, trenching and nine diamond drill holes, totalling 1016.2 metres, on the area as part of the Goof, Knot, P, Bob, Pig, Saint and Sol claims of the Gataga Joint Venture property.