The Slash prospect is at 1000 metres elevation, on the east side of Ferguson Creek, approximately 1000 metres east of its confluence with Lardeau Creek. The area is underlain by deep cover and its early exploration history is unknown. The prospect was first identified by Nortran Resources Limited, who flew an airborne electro-magnetic survey in the area, in 1987, and followed up by drilling several prospective structures. No mineralization was found at that time; however, in 1993, Contiki Resources Limited optioned the property and included it in a deep overburden drilling program.
The Trout Lake area is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Badshot Formation and Lardeau Group near the northern end of the Kootenay arc, an arcuate, north to northwest trending belt of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata that is now classified as a distinct, pericratonic, terrane. The arc rocks are bordered by Precambrian quartzite in the east and they young to the west, where they are bounded by Jurassic-age intrusive complexes. They were deformed during the Antler orogeny in Devonian-Mississippian time and were refolded and faulted during the Columbian orogeny, in the Middle Jurassic. A large panel, the "Selkirk allochthon", was later offset to the northeast by dip-slip motion along the Columbia River Fault.
The Badshot Formation is composed of a thick Cambrian limestone that is a distinctive marker horizon in the Trout Lake area. It is underlain by Hamill Group quartzite and it is overlain by a younger assemblage of limestone, calcareous, graphitic and siliceous argillite and siltstone, sandstone, quartzite and conglomerate, and also mafic volcanic flows, tuffs and breccias, all of which belong to the Lardeau Group. The rocks are isoclinally folded and intensely deformed, but only weakly metamorphosed. They occur as intercalated beds of marble, quartzite and grey, green and black phyllite and schist. Fyles and Eastwood (EMPR BULL 45) subdivided the group into six formations (Index, Triune, Ajax, Sharon Creek, Jowett and Broadview) of which the lowermost (Index) and uppermost (Broadview) are the most widespread. The Triune (siliceous argillite), Ajax (quartzite) and Sharon Creek (siliceous argillite) are restricted to the Trout Lake area. The Jowett is a mafic volcanic unit.
The Slash area is poorly exposed but appears to be underlain by deformed phyllitic schists of the Broadview Formation. Airborne and ground geophysical data show that the rocks are cut by a series of north trending faults and Nortran Resources later confirmed the presence of these faults through drilling. Although their drill program failed to locate significant mineralization, they remained a target for further exploration. The faults are covered by thick overburden and Contiki Resources used a gas-powered auger to collect "C" horizon soil samples over a grid covering them. The company located a well-defined silver anomaly in "C" horizon and drilled four holes, in 1995, to test the area. It failed to find significant mineralization and concluded that the anomaly may reflect a buried erosional channel.
