The Bugnello prospect is located on the west side of American Creek, about 1500 metres north of Kimball Lake.
The west side of American Creek is underlain by Hazelton Group rocks in the north trending, faulted core of the American Creek anticline (Bulletin 63). Lowermost black argillites and overlying siltstones of the Lower Jurassic Unuk River Formation are overlain by green and maroon fragmental volcanics of the Lower Jurassic Betty Creek Formation. A major north-trending fault lies oblique to the fold axis; axial planar faults or shears lie parallel to the fold axial plane. Later east-trending faults strike across the fold-fault zone. The late stage epithermal mineralization may be related to the Eocene Hyder pluton (Assessment Report 18430, page 13).
Mineralization consists of quartz, quartz-ankerite and quartz-calcite veins in altered volcanic tuffs. Pyrite, sphalerite, galena and chalcopyrite occur in quartz-carbonate veins in a zone of silicification and carbonatization that is related to green intrusive dikes. The veins are variably vuggy and heavily manganese stained; surface oxidation of sulphides is prominent.
The Bugnello veins (Nos. 1 and 2) trend north and dip west. They pinch and swell to widths of about 1 metre and are crosscut by younger east-trending quartz veins. The 1988 drilling confirmed the continuity of the quartz-carbonate veins downdip, however, grades were significantly lower than from surface samples. The best intersection came from drillhole 88-4 and assayed 5.2 grams per tonne gold, 546.5 grams per tonne silver, 0.40 per cent copper, 0.06 per cent lead and 0.01 per cent zinc across 0.91 metre from the No. 1 vein (Assessment Report 18430).
In 2006, a total of 140 rock geochemical samples were collected from the area of the Lilianne vein and work showed that the vein was at least 600 metres long with strong gold-silver values. Best results included 236.6 grams per tonne gold, 8108 grams per tonne silver, 11.24 per cent copper, 5.95 per cent lead and 13.4 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 28726).
Several other mineralized occurrences were located during the 1986-88 work. The more interesting of these is about 300 metres east of the No. 1 vein, adjacent to the eastern boundary of the AM 1 claim. Here, several east trending, irregular quartz veins are locally well mineralized with pyrite, chalcopyrite and galena. Chip samples assayed up to 9.9 grams per tonne gold and 3056.6 grams per tonne silver over a width of 0.27 metre (Assessment Report 15365, page 11).
The exact date of the discovery of the mineralization is unknown, but work has been done intermittently in the area since 1938. That year, Napco Gold Mines Ltd. held the Northern 1-8 (104A 114), Pass 1-4, Moonlight (104A 005), Moonlight 1, Northern 10, Camp A, Protector, Precious and Precious 1-3 claims in the area. Several new showings were located by prospecting on the northern part of the claims, especially on the Pass claims. In 1955, Great North Mining Company conducted some drilling in the immediate area. In 1979, Tournigan Mining Explorations Ltd. performed sampling on the Liliane claim. During 1986-88, Square Gold Explorations (later renamed Glacier Resources) carried out geological mapping, sampling and drilling (6 holes totalling 456 metres) on the AM 1 claim. The drilling tested two subparallel, north-northwest trending veins (Nos. 1 and 2), spaced about 100 metres apart. In 2006, Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd. and Pinnacle Mines Ltd. conducted an exploration program on the FR 1 and 4 claims consisting of geochemical sampling along the Lilianne vein and diamond drilling to test the silver tenor of the Moonlight (104A 005) and Coates showing (104A 114). A total of 1307.61 metres of BTW drill core was completed in 15 separate drillholes fiom two different pads.
