The region is underlain by (?)Hadrynian to Paleozoic Snowshoe Group rocks. The Snowshoe Group is an assemblage of dominantly metasedimentary rocks within the Barkerville Terrane of south-central British Columbia. These metasedimentary rocks consist primarily of marble, quartzite and phyllite. In the Yanks Peak area these rocks comprise the Keithley and Harveys Ridge successions, but further to the east they remain undifferentiated. Metamorphism of the region varies from chlorite to sillimanite and higher grade. Gold-bearing quartz veins occur only in greenschist facies rocks.
The Hebson vein is on the west side of the crest of the Aster-Breakneck Ridge and outcrops for about 152 metres at about 1829 metres elevation on the gently sloping upland, and extends southward downhill into Little Snowshoe Creek for about 305 metres. The total length of vein in natural exposures and opencuts is about 487 metres.
The Hebson vein is hosted within a north trending fault zone cutting Midas Formation (Snowshoe Group) black silty quartzite which outcrops in a long narrow ribbon about 91 metres wide. These rocks are folded into a thin anticlinal septum lying between synclines of grey Snowshoe Group quartzite to east and west. The vein reaches a maximum width of 7.6 metres near its northern end, in other exposures ranges between 1.2 and 4.6 metres wide, and in southern opencuts averages about 3 metres wide. The Hebson vein is iron stained (assumed to be limonite) and mineralized with sparse pyrite, galena and sphalerite with minor visible gold. The vein strikes about 355 degrees and cuts across the foliation of the enclosing rocks. The vein appears to dip 65 degrees east in the Hebson adit, and lower down, in the Taylor adit (093A 102), it dips 75 degrees east. The vein is ribboned with slivers of unreplaced wallrock and has 5 to 7.6 centimetres of gouge along the hangingwall side. "Taylor states that very fine gold may be panned from several of the vein outcrops and that the highest assay he obtained was about 0.35 ounce gold per ton" (Bulletin 34).
In the Hebson adit, there is brecciated and re-cemented quartz along the vein walls. The vein occupies a northerly striking fault along which some of the movement was later than the introduction of the vein quartz. The Hebson adit is at an elevation of about 1755 metres and is inaccessible (ca. 1954). It is reported to be about 21 metres long and to have been driven along the west side of a 1.8 to 2.4 metre vein which angles across the adit and which at the face is about 3.6 metres wide. Some high gold assays are reported to have been obtained about 9 metres from the portal (Bulletin 34).
The Taylor adit (093A 102) just to the northwest and at an elevation of about 1694 metres, was driven by B.E. Taylor from the side of a small tributary of Little Snowshoe Creek. The adit crosscuts the formation for about 46 metres and at the face exposes the full Hebson vein width of 2.7 metres. The quartz is crushed and ribboned and slightly iron stained, but no mineralization is evident. Several opencuts and short timbered drifts in overburden have traced the vein for about a 100 metres south of the Taylor adit.
In 1954, the Hebson group of claims were held by B.E. Taylor, of Wells, and was first located by him in 1931. The ground had been previously located about 1925 by F.M. Wells and before that by Hebson, after whom the vein was named, and who, in 1914, drove an exploratory adit on the vein. Undoubtedly the bold quartz outcrop was seen by the earliest prospectors in the country (Bulletin 34).
