The Paradise Syenite showing is located approximately 4.5 kilometres east of the Verity carbonatite showing (083D 005). Blue River is 45 kilometres to the south along Highway 5. This showing is only accessible by helicopter support from Valemount or Blue River, as no trail exists in to the area from lower elevations.
A nepheline syenite gneiss complex crops out east and north of the Paradise carbonatite showing (083D 006) but lies stratigraphically below carbonatite. The syenite complex occurs as sills within quartz-hornblende-mica schist of the Semipelite Amphibolite Division of the Hadrynian Horsethief Creek Group. In general, the syenites are composed of grey weathering, medium grained, layered and foliated gneisses. They are locally migmatitic, with massive, medium to coarse grained, lensoidal leucosomes.
Exposures of carbonatite occur with high grade metasediments on the north face of Paradise Mountain, immediately south of Paradise Lake and along the ridge to the northwest, on both sides. The relationship between syenite and carbonatite is unknown due to structural complications but a uranium/lead isotopic age of 340 Ma from a zircon separate, suggests that they are penecontemporaneous intrusives of Devono-Mississippian (circa 350 Ma) age (Bulletin 86, in press). The regional foliation generally strikes 120 degrees and dips 15 to 30 degrees southwest. Two major orientations of faults occur locally with the more prominent striking 345 degrees and dipping steeply to the west. Motion on these faults is west side down. The other strikes east-west dipping near vertical. Structures to the north and northeast of Paradise indicate the area has undergone regional doming.
The major constituents of the syenite are: microcline, plagioclase, nepheline and biotite. Accessory minerals include muscovite, sodalite, cancranite, zircon and perthite. Trace minerals present are: calcite, magnetite, pyrrhotite, pyrochlore and uranopyrochlore (Open File 1987-17). Maximum thickness of nepheline syenite outcrops is 3.65 to 4.56 metres. Syenite is locally associated with amphibolite. In the cirque above Paradise Lake, synclinally folded nepheline syenite has black amphibolite in the core. On the west wall of the cirque and to the east above the cirque, nepheline syenite structurally overlies and is in contact with amphibolite. A boulder in talus contained biotite-rich sovite in nepheline syenite. Directly below the nepheline complex is a zone of pegmatite sill-like bodies consisting of feldspar, quartz and muscovite. At one exposure, the upper contact was observed to be discordant with the enclosing schist, where schist formed small folds up to 6 metres across.
The nepheline syenite has a low Sr87/Sr86 ratio of 0.7047 +/- 0.0004. This low ratio indicates a probable sub-crustal origin (Assessment Report 1630). Chemical analyses of trace and rare earth elements of a nepheline-sodalite syenite is as follows (in per cent): 0.0011 tantalum, 0.091 strontium, 0.00023 thorium, 0.1330 zirconium, 0.0001 lanthanum and cerium, 0.00019 neodynium, 0.00006 ytterbium and 0.00001 scandium (Open File 1987-17).
