The Mugwump mercury, antimony prospect, 2.5 kilometres northwest of the confluence of Relay and Tyaughton creeks, approximately 24 kilometres north of Gold Bridge, B.C.
The showing is hosted in conglomerate of the informally named Dash Formation of the Cretaceous Taylor Creek Group, and adjacent quartz-carbonate altered serpentinite (listwanite). The serpentinite-listwanite occurs along a fault strand of a major northwest trending fault system and separates the Taylor Creek Group from rocks of the Mississippian to Jurassic Bridge River Complex (Group) to the east.
Cinnabar and stibnite occur as disseminated grains, smears on fractures, blebs, streaks and partly massive seams associated with quartz veinlets, calcite and hematite along fractures and joints within pebble conglomerate. Cinnabar is relatively abundant as disseminations within listwanite. Stibnite, as acicular needles, forms drusy clusters that occupy vugs, and also forms semi-massive seams along quartz veinlets in conglomerate.
The main mineralized shear in the conglomerate trends 330 degrees and dips to the northeast, and has been traced for 457 metres. Faulting and shearing has enhanced permeability in the conglomerate. Cinnabar and stibnite were most likely deposited at relatively shallow depths from low temperature (or epithermal) hydrothermal solutions. The disseminated nature of deposition was coincident with quartz-carbonate alteration of the serpentinite.
The region has been explored since the 1930's for commodities including mercury, antimony, tungsten and gold. The nearby Empire Mercury Mine on Mud Creek produced mercury in 1938, and the Tungsten Queen and Tungsten King workings shipped hand-cobbed tungsten in the early 1940's. Exploration continued in the mid 1960's.
In 1981 and 1984, Westmin Resources Ltd. conducted soil surveys over their TY2 claim covering the Mugwump showing. Several coincident anomalies of tungsten, mercury and antimony were generated. Prospecting, mapping and geochemical sampling over the showing area was continued by Aurum Geological Consultants Ltd. in 1987.
In 2012, Durfeld Geological expanded geological mapping and prospecting across this area of their large Eldorado Gold project. Rock sample 345883 from the Mugwump prospect returned coincident anomalous mercury (17 parts per million), tungsten (27 parts per million), antimony (149 parts per million) and arsenic (53 parts per million), values that provide support of an Orogenic Gold model.