The area is underlain by mafic to intermediate volcanic rocks of the upper Elise Formation, the central volcanic package of the Lower to Middle Jurassic Rossland Group. The rocks are intruded by the Middle to Late Jurassic Nelson Intrusions and many small coeval stocks, by Middle Eocene Coryell Intrusions syenites and by Tertiary rhyolite and lamprophyre dykes.
Structure is dominated by northerly trending tight folds and associated shears. The Hall Creek syncline, a south plunging, west dipping overturned fold, is the most prominent fold in the area. The core of the syncline forms a zone of intense shearing more than a kilometre in width and is informally referred to as the Silver King shear zone.
The Great Western occurrence lies on the eastern margin of the Silver King shear zone and is underlain by upper Elise Formation volcanic rocks which are locally intensely sheared. Augite porphyry flows, mafic fine tuff, intermediate lithic tuff, and felsic intrusive lenses or crystal flows or sills comprise most of the succession on the property; intermediate to felsic units occur only as minor lenses. The succession is interpreted to be inverted as it occurs on the west limb of the overturned Hall Creek syncline (Exploration in British Columbia 1988). The volcanic succession is intruded by the Middle Jurassic "Silver King Porphyry" (Silver King Intrusions) along the northeastern edge of the property. The porphyry predates the intense regional deformation; it is deformed and metamorphosed, with the most intense shearing concentrated along its margins.
Foliation throughout the area generally trends northwest, dips steeply to the southwest and is axial planar to the Hall Creek syncline.
Within the mafic volcanic rocks are a number of zones of intense carbonate-sericite-quartz alteration that are conformable to foliation and contain gold-copper mineralization. A number of these zones are cored by felsic (syenite?) lenses. This is a "conformable gold" occurrence.
The mafic volcanic rocks are predominantly green phyllites and schists. Lapilli tuff units are observed locally. Foliated and sheared mafic flows and flow breccias occur in the footwall of the most northerly mineralized zone (Black Witch). Elsewhere, foliated green phyllite without recognizable clasts is interpreted to be derived from mafic fine tuff.
Gold-copper mineralization occurs in zones of intense carbonate-sericite-quartz alteration in both the mafic units and in the associated felsic units. These alteration zones are 5 to 10 metres in width and several hundred metres in length. They contain 2 to 10 per cent sulphides, dominantly pyrite with minor chalcopyrite. The sulphides occur mainly as stringers parallel to the schistosity but are also pervasively distributed. The sulphide-bearing rocks are deformed together with the host rocks, indicating mineralization predates deformation (Exploration in British Columbia 1988). These mineralized zones are now elongate in the direction of lineation trending 147 degrees and plunging 31 degrees southeast. Some mineralization, however, is also concentrated in late, post-tectonic, crosscutting quartz veins. The best intersection in drill core is 7 metres which assayed 9.7 grams per tonne gold (Exploration in British Columbia 1988).
The three principal mineralized zones are the Giveout Creek North, Giveout Creek South and Black Witch. The Giveout Creek North and South zones appear to occur in the northern part of the White Witch claim (Lot 3595). The Black Witch zone is 250 metres north-northwest of the Giveout Creek zones and appears to be on or close to the southern boundary of the Thistle claim (Lot 2233).
Work History
Several small tunnels and pits are present on the property dating back to the early 1900's. The North Star (Lot 4149) occurrence (082FSW276) adjoins the White Witch claim to the south.
In 2001 and 2002, Apex completed programs of soil sampling and rock sampling on the area.
In 2017, Prize Mining completed a program of geological mapping, prospecting, geochemical (rock and soil) sampling, a ground magnetic survey, 1180 metres of trenching, environmental (water) sampling and 18 diamond drill holes, totalling 2694.77 metres, on the area as the Daylight property. Drilling on the Great Eastern and Great Western occurrences yielded intercepts including 1.16 grams per tonne gold over 32.60 metres in hole DL17005 and 1.09 and 1.00 grams per tonne gold over 71.22 and 19.0 metres, respectively, in hole DL17007, whereas a grab sample of porphyry with quartz veining from the Great Western adit yielded 9.05 grams per tonne gold (Moose Mountain Technical Services [2021-07-19]: NI 43-101 Resource Estimate for the Kena and Daylight Properties).
