The Gnome property is located 2 kilometres east of the Vidette mine (MINFILE 092P 086), northeast of Vidette Lake in the Deadman River Valley. The area is approximately 50 (air) kilometres north of Savona and is accessible on a good quality gravel road that leads north from the Trans-Canada Highway approximately 7.4 kilometres west of Savona.
The Vidette Lake area is underlain by mafic volcanic rocks of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group exposed in a window eroded through flat lying Miocene sedimentary rocks and plateau basalts of the Chilcotin Group. The uppermost Chilcotin Group strata form an extensive layer of plateau basalts of the Chasm Formation, underlain by volcanic ash and fluviatile and lacustrine sedimentary strata of the Deadman River Formation which occupy a northwest-trending Miocene channel. In the southern parts of the Yard claims and the Gnome claim, the Nicola rocks are intruded by biotite-hornblende granodiorite plugs which are possibly related to the Triassic to Jurassic Thuya Batholith. Nicola rocks are generally chlorite-rich or calcareous greenstones; however, contact metamorphism has developed garnet-diopside-actinolite skarn or tactite adjacent to the intrusive rocks. Locally a siliceous cap is developed near the paleosurface within and overlying the Nicola rocks. The siliceous cap rocks are varicoloured (white, red, buff, brown) and consist of cryptocrystalline massive and banded to vuggy silica. Some silica occurs as crosscutting veins within Nicola rocks; other thin, delicately layered material is interpreted as hot spring sinter (Assessment Report 17810). Carbonatization and chloritization are other alteration features common in the Nicola rocks.
Locally, as identified by diamond drilling and in surface pits, chalcedonic quartz-carbonate (calcite) veins host disseminated pyrite with gold values. Earlier work, by Keda Resources Limited, identified molybdenite and chalcopyrite mineralization in a porphyry-style environment.
In 1973, sampling of a pit is reported to have yielded 0.35 per cent copper, 8.9 grams per tonne silver and 4.8 grams per tonne gold across a 20-centimetre-wide quartz-carbonate vein (Property File - Ragnar V. Bruaset [1994-01-28]: Report - Gnome Mineral Claim in the Deadman River Proposed Study Area).
In 1988, diamond drilling on the Gnome claim yielded an intersection of 4.65 grams per tonne gold across 0.55 metre in a fine-grained Nicola tuff cut by a multitude of calcite and quartz veinlets with up to 35 per cent disseminated pyrite (Assessment Report 18492).
In 1989, diamond drilling resulted in an intersection grading 0.74 gram per tonne gold across 18 centimetres of calc-silicate skarn cut by a 2-centimetre black to colourless chalcedonic quartz veinlet within Nicola Group rocks on the Yard claims (Assessment Report 19136). Other holes are reported to have yielded up to 0.1 per cent copper over 68 metres (Property File - Ragnar V. Bruaset [1994-01-28]: Report - Gnome Mineral Claim in the Deadman River Proposed Study Area).
Work History
The Gnome property was staked as the VID group of claims in 1972 by Keda Resources Limited (Assessment Report 4257), who completed a soil geochemical survey (355 samples). Cominco Limited staked the property as a molybdenum prospect in 1981, and completed widely spaced reconnaissance magnetic and induced polarization surveys on what was then called the Gala property (Assessment Report 9223). In 1983, Chevron Canada Resources Limited re-staked the property as the Gnome claim and undertook magnetometer surveys, soil and silt geochemical surveys (377 samples) and lithogeochemical surveys (59 samples) during an exploration program for molybdenum (Assessment Report 12021). In 1986, Noranda Exploration Company completed a single NQ diamond drill hole (312.4 metres) under an option agreement with Chevron. In 1988, The Canadian Nickel Company optioned the Gnome claim from Chevron and completed a program of geological mapping, lithogeochemistry (17 samples), soil geochemical sampling (933 samples) and diamond drilling (825 metres in two holes; Assessment Report 18492). Mr. M. Dickens staked the adjoining EPI group and optioned the claims to the Canadian Nickel Company, who in 1988 (Assessment Report 17810) completed a program of geological mapping, soil geochemical surveying (961 samples) and lithogeochemistry (17 samples). In 1989, Inco (Assessment Report 19136) completed five diamond drill holes (1140 metres) on the Yard 1 and 2 claims (EPI group) immediately to the north of the Gnome claim. In 1995, Queenstake Resources Limited completed a three-hole diamond drill program totalling 610 metres (Assessment Report 23971). In 2020, Kermode Resources Ltd. completed a minor program of prospecting, geological mapping and rock sampling on the area.
