The Answer occurrence lies near the southwestern limit of the Zeballos gold camp, on the eastern side of a small hill located immediately east of the Zeballos River and approximately 1.5 kilometres north of the community of Zeballos.
Regionally, the area is underlain by Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Bonanza Group basaltic to rhyolitic volcanic rocks. Conformably underlying the Bonanza volcanic rocks are limestones and limy clastics of the Triassic to Lower Jurassic Parson Bay Formation (Bonanza and Vancouver groups) and Upper Triassic Quatsino Formation (Vancouver Group), and tholeiitic basalts of the Upper Triassic Karmutsen Formation (Vancouver Group). Dioritic to granodioritic plutons of the Zeballos intrusion phase of the Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite have intruded all older rocks. The Zeballos stock, a quartz diorite phase of the Eocene to Oligocene Mount Washington Plutonic Suite, is spatially related to gold-quartz veining in the area. Bedded rocks are predominantly northwest striking, southwest dipping, and anticlinally folded about a northwest axis.
Locally, dark-green massive tuff of the Bonanza Group hosts a quartz-calcite-pyrite vein up to 5 centimetres wide that follows a 5.0- to 20.0-centimetre-wide shear zone. The shear zone strikes 057 degrees and dips 70 to 80 degrees northwest. A second vertical vein branches off the main vein at a point located approximately 35 metres from the portal of the lower tunnel and strikes 325 degrees. The vein varies in width from 3.8 to 22.5 centimetres. A third vein, 7.5 centimetres wide, strikes 90 degrees and dips 70 to 90 degrees north. Other narrow quartz veins or stringers, varying in width from 0.3 to 2.5 centimetres, intersect the lower tunnel from the southeast at a point 3.6 metres from the adit portal, and are reported to contain pyrite and native gold.
In 1938, samples assayed up to 41.1 grams per tonne gold and 17.2 grams per tonne silver over 3- to 7-centimetre widths (Bulletin 27, page 50).
In 1939, a sample taken from the lower adit at a point 21 metres from the adit portal yielded 33.5 grams per tonne gold, whereas four select samples taken from the upper adit yielded from 80.0 to 599.2 grams per tonne gold (Property File - C.W. Shearing [1939-03-10]: Summary Report on Answer Mineral Claims property of Zeballos Answer Mining Syndicate). A select sample from the second branch vein assayed 752.4 grams per tonne gold and a sample from the quartz stringers assayed 184.7 grams per tonne gold over 2.5 centimetres width (Property File - C.W. Shearing [1939-03-10]: Summary Report on Answer Mineral Claims property of Zeballos Answer Mining Syndicate).
Work History
The area has been explored since the 1930s, and the Answer 1-6 claims were staked in 1937. The claims were Crown granted to Zeballos Answer Gold Mines Ltd. in 1939 and the main vein was explored by two adits, at elevations of approximately 30 and 42 metres, and underground workings for a total of 180 metres.
During 2011 through 2017, and in 2019, North Bay Resources Inc. completed programs of prospecting and rock and silt sampling on the area as the Zeballos Gold property. This work identified four test pits, up to 4.5 metres deep, of unknown age but could not locate either adit. This work was centred on the anomalous B zone located on a ridge separating Bingo and Hidden Valley creeks to the southeast. Sampling of the Bonanza Group rocks returned slightly anomalous copper values but no significant gold values. A new prospecting adit that opens a few quartz-calcite veins was discovered within the Tagore Mine area.
