The Raven or Silver Bell past producer is at the head of Five-Mile Creek, which flows off the lower slopes of Nettie L. Mountain into Lardeau Creek. The Silver Bell group changed in composition over the years but appears to include the Raven, Silver Bell, O.K., Cracker, Stella, Norway and Hopperanda claims. They are on trend to the southeast of the Ajax [082KNW099], Nettie L. [082KNW100] and Gyp [082KNW010] past producing mines and straddle the shear zone that controls those occurrences.
In 1898, the Silver Bell group consisted of the Silver Bell, Stella, Norway and Hopperanda claims. At that time a shaft was sunk to a depth of 7.3 metres on the Silver Bell claim, and a crosscut was driven for 30 metres to access the vein on the adjacent Norway claim. The following year, 24.3 metres of development crosscut was driven on the Raven claim. By 1911, the Silver Bell group consisted of the Silver Bell, O.K. and Cracker Jack claims. There were reported to be numerous open cuts showing "concentrating ore" and an adit 46 metres long.
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 Nettie L, Ajax and Gyp area is underlain siliceous argillites of the Triune and Sharon Creek Formations, by quartzite of the Ajax Formation and by grits and black phyllites of the lower part of the Broadview Formation. The rocks are folded, deformed and locally highly schistose. The area encompassed by the mine is bounded on the northeast by the Cup Creek Fault, on the southwest by the (probably faulted) base of the Broadview Formation and on the southeast by the Brow Fault. The zone is 1000 metres long and 200 to 250 metres wide, and covers a portion of the core of the Silver Cup Anticline, a regionally important isoclinal structure that plunges at 25 degrees to the northwest. The area is also cut by northeast trending cross faults. One displaces the anticline between the Nettie L. and Ajax workings. The ore lenses are controlled by faults and drag folds associated with the anticlinal structure, which is over-turned to the southwest. Its axial plane dips at 60 degrees to the northeast. On the Nettie L. [082KNW100] they are also found on cross faults. There are three relatively large, north-northeast striking structures in the mine area, as well as post-mineral faults that have caused large displacements to occur in the plane of the "main lead". The Nettie L. "ledge", is a northwest trending structure that contains quartz veins with variable amounts of pyrite, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite and erratic values in gold and silver. The surface trace is marked by an oxidized "iron cap" that is readily visible. Most of the development work has been on the Nettie L. [082KNW100] and Ajax [082KNW099]. However, the "ledge" crosses the Ajax claim boundary onto the Brow claim, and from there onto the Raven, which is part of the Silver Bell group.
The Silver Bell shaft and Norway adit were developed to access a vein of "concentrating ore", 1.82 metres wide, containing several seams of solid galena and pyrite. In one locality, in 1911, the workings showed a 0.08 to 0.20 metre wide vein of galena and quartz that in places carries a considerable amount of tetrahedrite. In 1941, 4 tonnes of ore produced 5319 grams of silver, 1330 Kilograms of lead and 227 kilograms of zinc.
