The largest placer workings on Morehead Creek occur at its junction with Little Lake Creek. Gold was first found on Morehead Creek in the 1860s, with the creek bed being mined for a length of 1260 metres. The creek valley consists of about 23 to 30 metres of Pleistocene and Holocene alluvium on a basement of Upper Triassic Nicola Group basalt flows and flow breccias. The alluvium can be divided into three layers.
The top 0 to 6 metres consists of Holocene stream sediments and debris. The middle section is well stratified, glaciofluvial gravel approximately 15 metres thick. These are the "Upper Gravels" of the old hydraulic miners. These graded $0.04 per cubic yard or 0.031 gram per tonne (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1927, page C177). The lowest section, the "Lower Gravels" is variable in thickness, 3 to 10 metres, are poorly stratified, poorly sorted, and contain abundant cobbles/boulders. The Lower Gravels graded up to $0.40 per cubic yard or 0.31 gram per tonne, with high grade pockets at $2.00 to $10.00 per cubic yard or 4 to 21 grams per tonne (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1927, page C177).
From early hydraulic mining, 1913 to 1915, an average grade of $0.13 per cubic yard or 0.101 gram per tonne was attained (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1927, page C177). The gold-bearing gravels are of Pleistocene age.
Placer mining activity was sporadic over the first half of this century, due primarily to poor water supply. Originally, Morehead Creek was a water supply for the Bullion Mine (093A 025). The Morehead Mining Co. worked a hydraulic mine from 1913 to 1915 and recovered about 978 ounces or 30,416 grams (Bulletin 28, page 51). The same company and other individuals recovered about 560 ounces (17,416 grams) during the period 1927 to 1945 (Bulletin 28, page 51).
By 1960, historic placer gold production from Morehead creek totalled 1768 ounces (54,985 grams) from gravel averaging 0.556 gram of gold per cubic metre. At this time an estimated resource of 13.76 million cubic metres containing 0.476 gram of gold per cubic metre were indicated. That same year, a sample containing 9.2 cubic metres of material from a 45 metre test vertical section, was found to average 0.48 gram of gold per cubic metre. The concentrates from the sluice boxes of this sample also yielded trace amounts (0.055 gram) of platinum (Property File Rimfire - Chisholm, E.O., 1960). Since then, testing and small production of a few thousand cubic metres (with no recorded production) has been done through to the mid 1960s, then there is no record of activity.
Gulderand Mining Corp. has outlined a large buried gravel channel. Seismic data indicates a depth of approximately 25 metres, a width of approximately 76 metres and a length of 1524 metres, open at both ends. Initial bulk testing on stream gravels have indicated $2,000,000 worth of gold in 500,000 yards (George Cross Newsletter #40, 1989). Further testing is planned for 1989.
Supergene leaching of gold, dispersed by Tertiary deep weathering and followed by Cenozoic erosion, is the likely explanation for the occurrence of coarse gold nuggets in Quaternary sediments (Exploration in British Columbia 1989, page 147).
