The THUNDER RIDGE (Spanish Creek) occurrence is located on Thunder Ridge, approximately 2 kilometres west of McNeil Lake, 57 kilometres southeast of the community of Horsefly.
The area is underlain by a northwest trending narrow corridor of Nicola Group sediments; a Middle to Upper Triassic package of predominantly argillites, phyllite, siltstones and sandstones. These have been intruded by unnamed Mesozoic intrusive gabbroic rocks.
Locally, drilling has confirmed a northeast bearing “gold zone” occurring in phyllites and siltstones, interpreted to be large quartz vein stock work systems that run parallel to bedding. These shallow northeast dipping quartz vein systems are reported to outcrop under the large gold soil anomaly.
Mineralization consists of coarse-grained cubic pyrite porphyroblasts, fine-grained disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite and pyrite and pyrrhotite stringers occurring in brecciated quartz carbonate veins and veinlets. Galena has also been noted and appears to be correlated with gold mineralization.
In 1982 and 1984, Homestake Development Corporation acquired claims over the area and conducted reconnaissance geological mapping and geochemical surveys. This work delineated a large gold anomaly, 1500 by 600 metres, near Thunder Ridge. In 2006, the area was acquired by Skygold Ventures Ltd and drill program was completed in 2008. Drilling returned up to 223 grams per tonne gold over 0.5 metre in drill hole SC005. In 2010, they changed their name to Spanish Mountain Gold and completed seven diamond drill holes, totalling 1797 metres, over the large soil anomaly. Drill hole 10SC031 returned 0.77 gram per tonne gold over 54.0 metres, including 19.15 grams per tonne over 1.0 metres (Assessment Report 31868).
From 2021 to 2023, Karus Gold Corp. ran regional programs of geological mapping, prospecting, silt, soil and rock sampling over their large tenure holdings, extending from McNeil Lake in the southeast to the community of Likely in the northwest. Most of their work in 2023 focused on the Thunder Ridge area in the southeast (Assessment Report 41906).
