The Lead Coil A showing is located about 15 kilometres northeast of Stewart and 4.2 kilometres east of the confluence of Bitter Creek and the Bear River, on the west flank of Ore Mountain.
The area is underlain by north to northeast striking, folded argillites of the Middle Jurassic Salmon River Formation (Hazelton Group) (Bulletin 63). The rocks are cut by several northwest trending granodiorite dikes that belong to the Portland Canal dike swarm.
Discontinuous mineralization occurs along both the faulted, vertical contacts of a 20 metre wide, northwest trending granodiorite dike. This dike can be traced for about 400 metres and appears to split into two 5 to 15 metre wide dikes to the southeast. The mineralization comprises quartz veins and lenses containing pyrite, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite hosted in crushed and sheared argillite. The lenses, or swelling of the veins, appear to coincide with flexures in the dike walls.
The longest continuous vein is exposed over a length of about 45 metres in the adit; channel sampling in 1980 indicated negligible values for this vein (Assessment Report 10489). In 1984, channel samples were taken from a trench on the mineralization between the east and west branches of the dike (trench 46N), about 350 metres south-southeast of the adit. One sample assayed 4.46 grams per tonne gold, 231.7 grams per tonne silver, 0.08 per cent copper, 0.44 per cent lead and 0.12 per cent zinc across a width of 30 centimetres (Assessment Report 13352).
In 1925, the Ore Mountain Mining Co. acquired the Lead Coil (Lot 4811) and Silver Band (Lot 4810) claims. During 1925-28, an adit 21 metres long was driven on the Silver Band claim and several opencuts were emplaced on the exposed mineralization in the western part of the adjacent Lead Coil claim. Only minor surface work was reported during 1929-32. The claims were subsequently acquired by Rufus-Argenta Mines. In 1966, the company name was changed to Crest Ventures Limited. That year Crest Silver Company Limited, a subsidiary of Crest Ventures, acquired the claims and during 1966-67 carried out some geological mapping. During 1970-73, Ardo Mines Ltd. optioned the property carried out prospecting, magnetometer and electromagnetic surveys. During 1979-80, Beaver Gold Resources Inc. acquired the property and carried out mapping, prospecting and sampling. In 1984, the property was owned by Grey Silver Mines Ltd. That year Maralgo Mines Limited optioned the property and flew an airborne VLF-EM and magnetometer survey over the area and conducted geological mapping, prospecting and sampling on the occurrence. No further work was reported until 1989 when Grey Silver Mines performed geological mapping, sampling and soil surveys in the area. The following year Varitech Resources Ltd. conducted a program of geological mapping, prospecting, sampling and soil, VLF-EM and magnetometer surveys in the area. The showing was resampled that year.
