The Cliff (Brussels) occurrence is located on a northeast facing slope, south of Kamloops Lake and approximately 3 kilometres southeast of Pat Lake.
The area is underlain by Upper Triassic Nicola Group metasediments composed of volcaniclastic conglomerates with minor sandstone and siltstone interbeds. The metasediments appear to occur as a monoclinal sequence that trends at an average 145 degrees. The metasediments dip vertically to steeply east, east of an inferred fault in a broad drift-filled valley that crosses the property in a northwesterly direction. The metasediments dip moderately southwest, west of this fault.
Late Cretaceous? or early Tertiary? discordant felsic dikes, with or without quartz-eye phenocrysts, intrude the metasediments at many locations. Moderate to strong carbonate and/or silica replacement of the conglomerates and sandstones occurs adjacent the felsic dikes. Both the country rocks and the felsic dikes are often faulted and cut by banded ankerite, dolomite, chalcedony and quartz veins. These intensely faulted replacement zones are anomalous in arsenic, antimony, gold and silver.
Locally, Nicola Group volcanic rocks host 1 to 3 metre wide carbonate-altered zones with minor quartz and/or chalcedony veining and pyrite.
In 1984, samples yielded up to 1.78 grams per tonne gold and 2.40 grams per tonne gold on check assay (Property File - Goldstone Exploration Ltd. [1984-10-01]: Supplementary Report (Phase I Exploration) on the Brussels Group of Mineral Claims).
The Golden Lime and Brussels claims were staked by M. Morrison in 1981 to cover several large rusty carbonate/silica replacement zones found within Nicola Group rocks during routine prospecting. The ground was transferred to Placer Development Ltd. soon after staking and during 1981 Placer crews conducted a widely-spaced soil geochemical survey and discovered several areas across the property with elevated mercury, arsenic, antimony and gold values. The Newmont showing, discovered by Newmont Exploration geologists in 1982, is located immediately west of the Gold Key 5 claim. Placer Development Ltd. carried out limited follow-up work on the Brussels claims and allowed their option to lapse in 1984. The property was optioned to Goldstone Exploration Ltd. in 1984, which collected lithogeochemical samples that yielded elevated values for the same elements that were discovered by Placer Development. In 1985, a reverse circulation percussion drilling program carried out by Goldstone Exploration tested five widely separated targets across the property with one drill hole each, totalling 292 metres of drilling. Two strong zones of carbonate/silica replacement were drilled over lengths of 80 metres but precious metal values were negligible and Goldstone abandoned the property in 1988. A series of soil geochemical (690 samples), magnetometer (13.2 kilometres) and geological surveys were conducted over the property by M. Morrison from 1989 until 1992, and five key areas considered worthy of detailed exploration were identified. A detailed geological mapping and sampling program was conducted over the Golden Lime 1 replacement zone in 1993 and in 1995, four more zones were mapped and sampled in detail. During 1990 through 1994, C.R.C. Explorations Ltd. and Ridel Resources Ltd. conducted a soil survey (1011 samples), ground magnetometer and VLF-EM survey (27 kilometres) over the Sprout claims. During 1996 through 1999, programs of soil sampling (441 samples), induced polarization (15 kilometres), ground magnetometer (20.2 kilometres) and VLF-EM (11 kilometres) surveys were conducted over portions of the Golden Lime, Gold Key and Sprout claims by M. Morrison and Ridel Resources Ltd.
