The Big Copper deposit, on the Copper Mine (Lot 456) claim, adjoins the King Solomon claim (082ESE054) to the south. The property straddles the northeast-southwest trending ridge on Copper Mountain at 1500 metres elevation, at the head of Wallace and Ingram creeks. Access to the property is by gravel road 8 kilometres west of Greenwood.
On the Copper Mine claim (also known as 'Big Copper') the ore consists of an oxidized cap of red earthy hematite, with a small amount of native copper and copper carbonate accompanied by masses of black chalcocite below. Other minerals noted included bornite, quartz and garnet. The original ore assayed several per cent copper and appreciable silver and gold. Re-sampling of the old workings by Riocanex in 1977 yielded grades ranging between 0.64 per cent copper over 3.5 metres and 2.75 per cent copper of random fragments (Assessment Report 6436).
The claim was located in 1887 and the earliest recorded development occurred in 1894, when a 5-metre shaft was sunk and a 12- metre tunnel was driven. The Copper Mine was Crown granted to J. Moran in 1896. In 1902 work was done which exposed an ore-body 53 metres in length and 25 metres in width. An open cut averaging 4.5 metres in width and 8 metres in height was run north-northwest for 27 metres in copper ore, of which there was a considerable quantity stockpiled in the dump near the excavation. In 1913, a zone of high grade copper ore was developed by open-cut stopping for a length of 60 metres. In 1917, the Big Copper and King Solomon mines together shipped 860 tonnes. Production for Big Copper, between 1912 and 1918, totalled 2206 tonnes, resulting in 42,642 grams of silver and 71,083 kilograms of copper.
In 1953 and 1954, W.E. McArthur completed a program of stripping and diamond drilling on the Copper Mine and King Solomon claims. This work led to the discovery of a body of sulphides, from which two carloads of ore were shipped to the Tacoma Smelter. In 1954, the property was optioned to Noranda Exploration Ltd. that drilled near the old showings and did some surface stripping in the same area. Development up to this point included an open pit on King Solomon and an adit on the Copper Queen claims. The following year 16 claims on Copper Queen were optioned to Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada Ltd. Geological mapping and 4 diamond drill holes totalling 614 metres were then completed. Aztec Exploration Ltd. continued this work beginning in 1956. Subsequent exploration programs by McIntyre Porcupine Mines Ltd., Pechiney Development Ltd., Riocanex Ltd. and Utah Mines Ltd., respectively in 1967, 1970, 1977 and 1980, included geological mapping, magnetometer and geochemical soil sampling, induced polarization surveys, bulldozer stripping and diamond drilling. Many of these exploration programs ranged beyond the original mineral occurrences on Copper Mountain, and probed widely in search of subcropping Phoenix-like deposits in the extensive Triassic limestone units that characterize the area.
The copper bearing unit is believed to be a Tertiary, pre- volcanic regolith formed by weathering of mineralized limestone, with possibly some transport of the products of weathering.
A diamond drill hole completed by McIntyre Mines Ltd. in 1967, just west of the west boundary of the Copper Mine claim, encountered skarn mineralization at depth associated with Brooklyn limestone, such as found in the vicinity of the Phoenix ore-body. The hole was drilled vertically to test an I.P. anomaly. After penetrating 170 metres of Tertiary volcanic rocks, the drill intersected Triassic limestone. The last 16 metres of the hole were in skarn, including an interval from 179-180 metres of green epidote breccia in fine grained dense purplish hornfels with 1-2 per cent disseminated pyrite.
In 1989, samples from the former workings returned 7.13 per cent copper, 21 parts per million silver and 2050 parts per billion gold (Assessment Report 20807).
In 1990, geophysical and soil sampling programs outlined a low order gold soil anomaly about 400 metres long. One sample from a rusty sharpstone conglomerate returned 0.75 gram per tonne gold. In 1993, one diamond drill hole, totalling 165.2 metres, tested the zone and a 1.52 metre section, from 128.63 to 130.15 metres, returned 1080 parts per billion gold (Assessment Report 23059).
During 2008 through 2012, Grizzly Discoveries Inc. completed programs of geochemical sampling, geological mapping and ground geophysical surveys on the area as the Greenwood property. In 2008, a sample (08ARP010) taken from oxidized rocks beside a former pit assayed 6.04 grams per tonne gold, 97.6 grams per tonne silver and greater than 1.00 per cent copper (Dufresne, M. (2013-11-25): Technical Report for the Greenwood Gold Project).
