The Blue (Discovery) occurrence is located 20 kilometres north of the townsite of Cassiar, about 120 kilometres north of the community of Dease Lake.
The showing area is underlain by an easterly dipping sequence of sediments of the Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Earn Group located on the southwest limb of the McDame Synclinorium. Minor lead-zinc-silver-barite mineralization is hosted by black mudstone, siliceous argillite, chert and minor shale of the Earn Group.
Massive galena-sphalerite-barite mineralization was previously reported to occur within a two-metre-thick highly oxidized horizon. Trenching in 1984 of this stratigraphic target along strike turned up massive and disseminated pyrite and barite mineralization. However, no sphalerite and only trace galena mineralization was encountered in those trenches. Assaying and geochemical analyses of bedrock and float occurrences were completed and failed to produce any significant lead-zinc-silver values; barium values were consistently high to very high and ranged from about 1 to 25.4 per cent. A 1997 program failed to find evidence of mineralization to the levels reported in previous work. The trenches had been reclaimed thus no confirmation sampling could be done.
In 1997, rock chip sampling at the Discovery showing yielded elevated lead (0.1 per cent) in the overlying and interbedded black mudstone (Assessment Report 25343).
An excellent exposure of the targeted exhalite stratigraphy lies approximately 300 metres northwest of the Discovery showing. Three discrete pyritic, cherty exhalite horizons were systematically chip sampled in 1984. Although lead-zinc-silver values are clearly subeconomic, they represent a marked increase over trench results from the Discovery showing area. Values up to 0.16 per cent lead, 0.27 per cent zinc and 5.6 grams per tonne silver were reported from one metre chip samples taken in 1984; no visible galena or sphalerite mineralization was noted (Assessment Report 25343).
In 1981-82, grid preparation, preliminary and extensive geological mapping, and geochemical sampling were completed. In 1984, bulldozer trenching and sampling was conducted. In 1996, the property was re-staked by Cominco Ltd. after a literature review of the previous work. A cursory site visit in 1996 confirmed similar stratigraphy as that seen at the Midway (104O 038) camp 48 kilometres to the north-northwest. A 1997 program concentrated on further examination of the exhalite horizon and known showings. An effort was made to find other parts of the exhalite that might contain better grades in situ than those reported in previous sampling.
