The Rock of Ages Fr. showing is located in the northern part of the Rock of Ages Fr. claim (Lot 4940), about 1.5 kilometres east-northeast of Mount Shorty Stevenson and approximately 1.5 kilometres west of the Bear River, 14 kilometres north of Stewart.
The area is underlain by north striking, west dipping Lower Jurassic Unuk River Formation (Hazelton Group) volcanics (Bulletin 58; 63). These rocks comprise mainly andesitic tuffs, breccias and flows; a unit of porphyritic rhyolite to dacite flows and tuffs, about 150 metres thick, lies at or about the stratigraphic level of the mineralization (Assessment Report 7841). North-northwest trending andesite porphyry dikes and associated faulting cut the felsic rocks near the showing (Assessment Report 16082). Both andesitic and felsic rocks are extensively pyritized near the mineralization.
Mineralization comprises magnetite, galena, sphalerite and pyrite in dacitic tuffs and intercalated lenses of limestone, chert and argillite. Beds of chert and argillite have been replaced by banded jasper-magnetite-hematite. The dacitic rocks have been fractured, chloritized, hematized and weakly silicified. Sulphide content of the mineralized zone varies from 1 to 35 per cent. The zone ranges from 5 to 10 metres wide and trends to the southwest for 70 metres. A sample from a tunnel (No. 3) assayed trace gold, 5.5 grams per tonne silver, 0.73 per cent zinc and 0.29 per cent lead across 3.5 metres (Assessment Report 16082).
The Glacier showing is located about 250 metres southwest of the Rock of Ages Fr. showing. Mineralization comprises irregular pods of massive sulphide in propylitized andesites. The sulphides are associated with fractures related to a northwest trending fault zone (Assessment Report 16082). Sulphide minerals comprise pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite and bornite; malachite and azurite have also been reported (Assessment Report 11546). A sample collected across 2.0 metres of massive sulphide assayed 5.7 grams per tonne gold, 31.7 grams per tonne silver and 28.3 per cent zinc (Assessment Report 16082).
Work History
The Dalhousie Mining Company Limited acquired the Rock of Ages claim group and conducted work during 1925 through 1928. The showing, or the nearby Glacier showing, was probably discovered during this time and may be the vein referred to as the No. 4 vein in the Minister of Mines Annual Report 1929 (page 92). No further work was reported until 1979 when Tournigan Mining Explorations Ltd. carried out geological mapping, prospecting, trenching and sampling. In 1983, Rich Lode Gold Corporation entered into an agreement with Tournigan and performed some prospecting near the showing. In 1986, Moche Resources Inc. acquired the Rock of Ages claims and conducted a program comprising airborne and ground VLF-EM and magnetometer surveys, soil and silt geochemical surveys and geological mapping. In 2010, geological mapping, geophysical surveying and rock and soil sampling was carried out on the MC claims on behalf of REC Minerals Corp. and included 95 soil and 22 rock samples and total field magnetometer surveying along 1.9 kilometres. In 2017 and 2019, Bonanza Mining Corp. completed programs of prospecting, geochemical (rock and soil) sampling and ground geophysical (induced polarization, magnetic and gravity) surveys on the area as the MC property.
