The BIG GULP occurrence, discovered by Barker Minerals Ltd. in 1996, is located on the C Road, 3 kilometres east of the south end of Cariboo Lake, 17 kilometres northeast of the village of Likely. Access to the showing is via gravel logging roads bearing northeast from Likely.
Big Gulp is a stratabound semi-massive sulphide occurrence in the Downey succession (Cambrian?) of the Snowshoe Group. Immediate hostrocks are pale grey to green sericite phyllite and darker chlorite phyllite; both contain abundant dispersed ankerite and variable amounts of calcite. These phyllites are interpreted to be altered mafic tuffs. The phyllites overlie Devonian-Mississippian Quesnel Lake orthogneiss immediately to the southwest and are structurally overlain by a 'chert to cherty tuff' horizon and then argillite.
Mineralization comprises a number of thin layers with dark sphalerite, and minor chalcopyrite and pyrite, dispersed in a siliceous, sericitic matrix. It is streaked parallel to a prominent west-plunging mineral lineation. Sulphides also occur in thin, discontinuous foliation-parallel quartz stringers. A grab sample assayed 4.5 per cent zinc and 0.06 per cent copper (Fieldwork 1997).
The host succession and zinc-copper tenor suggest similarities with Besshi-type massive sulphide mineralization. Alteration, including sericitic, silicification and 'brownish white carbonate' just northwest of the showing, is also characteristic of this deposit type.
Rio Algoma Exploration Inc. surveyed the area as the Mass claims in the early 1990s. From 1996 through 2025, Barker Minerals Ltd. conducted programs of geological mapping, float rock, till, soil and stream sediment sampling were conducted across several areas on the Frank Creek (Cariboo Lake) property. Soil sampling in the Big Gulp to SCR area of the Frank Creek property in 2023 and 2024 identified five zones of coincident copper, zinc, arsenic and antimony anomalies (Assessment Report 41745). Also in 2023, two float rock samples collected to the north of the Big Gulp showing returned values of 13.72 and 10.4 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 42429).
See Frank Creek (Minfile 093A 152) for a more detailed exploration history on the Frank Creek property.
