The Poker area is underlain by rocks of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group. About 3.5 kilometers to the southeast is the Early Jurassic Limpoke pluton of the Texas Creek plutonic suite (189-195 Ma) consisting of monzodioritic to gabroic intrusive rock. The Limpoke pluton is a two-phase stock with a biotite hornblende quartz monzonite outer phase and medium grained hornblende monozodiorite inner phase. Leucocratic potassium feldspar megacrystic syenite dikes and plugs intrude the eastern and western borders of the pluton and Stuhini rocks.
A quartz-sulphide boulder train has been traced to the Limpoke Glacier area where drilling has attempted to locate the source.
Pyroxene crystal lithic tuff and tuffaceous wacke are intruded by hornblende monzonite stock along the southern edge of the Limpoke Glacier. The contact zone is locally silicified and altered. However, the source of the mineralized boulder train at the toe of the glacier remains unknown.
Mineralized boulders consist of three types:
Type 1: quartz with 5 to 25 per cent sulphides and trace of bismuth telluride and gold. Sulphides include pyrrhotite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, arsenopyrite and tetrahedrite.
Type 2: massive, crudely banded sulphides comprised of pyrrhotite 10 to 90 per cent, pyrite (5 to 50 per cent), chalcopyrite (2 to 10 per cent), sphalerite (2 to 5 per cent) and galena (1 to 2 per cent). Non-sulphide components include quartz, potassium feldspar, and siltstone.
Type 3 Quartz-carbonate boulders with up to 50 per cent sulphides, including sphalerite (30 to 40 per cent), pyrite (5 to 8 per cent), pyrrhotite (0 to 5 per cent), chalcopyrite (0 to 5 per cent) and arsenopyrite (0 to 2 per cent). The gangue is coarse grained quartz (50 to 90 per cent) and crystalline calcite (10to 50 per cent).
Firesteel Resources Inc. sampled boulders in 2002 at the base of a scree slope upslope from the initial mineralized boulder discovery. Two samples returned assay values greater than 40 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 27102).
Work History
The Poker Property was staked in 1988 after prospectors working for Cominco Ltd. located 36 gold-bearing, quartz-sulphide boulders in a one-kilometer-long boulder train that lead west along Limpoke Creek to the toe of Limpoke Glacier (the Lower Boulder Field). Samples from the boulders assayed on average 24.2 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 19247). Additional Cominco prospecting in 1989 discovered a second mineralized boulder field on the south side of Limpoke Glacier, 1.75 kilometres west of the Lower Boulder Field (the Upper Boulder Field). Cominco geologists believed that the gold bearing mineralized boulders came from beneath the Limpoke glacier. Several exploration programs have been undertaken since the 1988 discovery of the high-grade boulders.
Corninco Ltd undertook the first program in 1989. Subsequent programs were undertaken by Dryden Resource Corporation in 1990 to 1992. Some of this work was property wide in extent. However, most of it was concentrated in a relatively small (0.75 kilometre square) area on the south side of Limpoke Glacier. The work included silt sampling, soil sampling, contour soil and talus sampling, heavy metal concentrate sampling, rock sampling, geological mapping, prospecting, geophysical surveying (magnetics, VLF-EM and UTEM), trenching and diamond drilling (three holes totaling 379 metres). The drilling mainly tested east-west trending geophysical targets, which were found to be associated with recessive graphitic argillite cut by shear zones. None of the work is considered to have discovered the main bedrock source of the property's high-grade boulders.
Prospecting by Dryden in 1992 did uncover a narrow, intermittent, north-south trending quartz vein hosted by a shear zone cutting monzodiorite, which is thought to be exposed about 500 metres to the west (up ice) of the upper mineralized boulder field. This quartz vein was chip sampled in two locations 55 metres apart and assayed 91.89 grams per tonne gold over 0.50 metre (Assessment Report 28744).
Cominco allowed the Poker Claims to lapse (in 2003?). The core claims were subsequently re-staked by Firesteel Resources Inc., but only undertook a very limited amount of work on them in 2002.
In 2006, St. Eugene Mining Corporation optioned the claims from Firesteel, and then completed an exploration program of contour soil sampling, prospecting, rock sampling and minor trenching on the property. A total of 78 rock samples were collected.
In 2011, Firesteel Resources continue the efforts to locate the source of three mineralized boulder types originally identified in the late 1980s. They collected 63 grab samples in order to determine other areas of interest outside those areas previously identified, none were found.
In September 2013 Firesteel Resources conducted an exploration program. Ten float and outcrop samples were collected and assayed. Four quartz veins were found in outcrop, one with significant mineralization (Assessment Report 34594).
In 2014, Divitiae Resources spent 2 weeks on its Big Red property which covered the folllowing mineral occurrences: 104G 001 (Poke Showing), (104G 002 Gordon Showing), 104G 024 (New Limpoke), 104G 121 (TUFF), 104G 206 (TGR (North), 104G 207 (TGR Vein), 104G 208 (Barrington Vein), 104G 209 (Upper Cave Creek),104G 210 (West Grid), 104G 211 (Northe Barrington), 104G 212 (Target 4), 104G 213 (Boundary Vein), 104G 214, (Terry Creek),104G 215 (Jimmie), 104G 216 (Bob), 104G 217 (Zamba), 104G 218 (Spike, Waterfall), 104G 230 (GRAN 16). Divitiae collected 12 rock samples in the southern portion of the property. Selective samples ran above 1 per cent copper.
In 2017, Divitiae Resources contracted Precision GeoSurveys Inc. to undertake an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey in late September that covered all of the River of Gold claims totalling 536 line-kilometres. Divitiae's River of Gold property was the renamed Big Red claim group of 2014 with more claims attached extending 5 kilometres west covering Poker (104G 149). In October of 2017, preliminary prospecting was completed on high probability anomalies generated by previous ASTER analysis, and the new airborne geophysics. At this time 64 rock samples were collected. Work on the northern portion of the property failed to find any samples to be assayed. The complete airborne geophysical survey report is attached as an appendix within assessment Report 36930).
Results of the ASTER survey are as follows. Four high probability clusters of phyllic alteration occur across the River of Gold claim block. Two clusters are coincident with high probability propylitic alteration and one is coincident with both propylitic and silica alteration. Several clusters of high probability iron oxide alteration occur throughout the River of Gold claims and indicate potential for gossan development. Advanced argillic and argillic alteration data suggests elevated clay formation surrounding a central zone of coincident phyllic-propylitic alteration in the centre of the River of Gold claim block. Similar elevated clay abundance occurs about 4 kilometres to the southeast of the central phyllic target on the property. Layer-stacking of phyllic, argillic and propylitic alteration maps have helped identify areas in which coincident hydrothermal alteration may be present. This resulted in two such target areas being found. A 600 metre diameter broadly circular zone of weak propylitic and phyllic alteration enclosed by weak argillic alteration is located within the NE portion of the River of Gold claims. Company interpretation of the zonation that was evident suggested a high-level porphyry system. A second anomalous zone occurs in the central portion of the River of Gold claims where coincident phyllic-propylitic alteration is enclosed by argillic alteration.
In 2019 and 2020, Libero Copper and Gold Corp. completed programs of geological mapping; geochemical (rock, soil and talus fines) sampling; a 549 line-kilometre airborne electromagnetic (ZTEM) survey; three diamond drill holes, totalling 610.0 metres, and 24 reverse-circulation drill holes, totalling 3527.5 metres, on the area as the Big Red property. A grab sample of diorite hosting a quartz-carbonate vein from the Poker occurrence assayed 27.6 grams per tonne gold (Equity Exploration Consultants Ltd. [2021-08-27]: Technical report on the Big Red Property, British Columbia, Canada).
