The HD 149 copper occurrence is located on a ridge, approximately 8 kilometres west of Tehran Peak in the mountainous Muskwa Ranges of the Northern Rocky Mountains (Assessment Report 2924, Map 3).
The occurrence is in a region known as the Muskwa Anticlinorium, a major north-northwest–trending structure characterized by thrust faults and moderate folding. Exposed in the structure are Middle Proterozoic (Helikian) carbonate and clastic rocks of the Muskwa Assemblage, along with Paleozoic rocks (Geological Survey of Canada Map 1343A; Geological Society of America, Geology of North America, Volume G-2, pages 111, 639). All belong to Ancestral North America (Geological Survey of Canada Map 1713A). Proterozoic diabase or gabbroic dikes are common in the region.
The eastern part of the HD claim group is underlain by shale and slate of the Gataga Formation of the Muskwa Assemblage (Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 373, Paper 67-68; Assessment Reports 2924, 10960). The strata strike northwest and dip gently to moderately southwest. Numerous diabase dikes intrude the rocks, striking approximately 330 degrees and dipping steeply west. Sedimentary rocks of the Cambrian Atan Group underlie the western part of the claim group but host no documented mineralization.
Very few details of the mineralization in the claim group are available. It is confined to the Gataga Formation and consists of fracture-filling quartz veins closely associated with diabase dikes. This occurrence is centred on a 6-metre long, 1.5-metre-wide quartz vein mineralized with chalcopyrite and malachite (Assessment Report 2924, Map 3). Some of the nearby float contains high-grade chalcopyrite.
Work History
In 1970, Blue Gulch Explorations Ltd. completed a geological mapping program on the area as the HD claims. Also at this time, Fortune Channel Mines Ltd. completed a program of geological mapping on the area immediately east of the occurrence as the D group of claims.
In 1981 and 1982, Coppex Syndicate completed a program of geological mapping and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the area as the BE and MO claim groups. A rock sample (4499) of black calcareous argillite with malachite staining from a north-northwest–trending ridge, located approximately 2.3 kilometres northeast of the HD 149 occurrence, assayed 0.26 per cent copper (Assessment Report 10960).
In 2005, Twenty-Seven Capital Corp. completed a regionally extensive program of geochemical (rock, silt and soil) sampling and a 9002.0 line-kilometre airborne magnetic survey on the area as the Muskwa property.
Also in 2005, Action Minerals Inc. and Aries Resource Corp. completed a program of prospecting on the area as the HD and HE claims of the Trident Copper project. A sample (335784) of high-grade float comprising massive quartz±carbonate veining with massive pyrite and chalcopyrite in a black shale from the occurrence area yielded 22.8 per cent copper and 12.95 grams per tonne silver (Harrington, E. [2008-07-07]: Technical Report on the HD Property, Liard Mining Division, British Columbia, Canada).