The Callaghan showing is located on the south shore of Willison Bay at the south end of Atlin Lake. The area of the showing, west of Hoboe Creek, is underlain by schistose rocks of the Devonian to Middle Triassic Boundary Ranges Metamorphic Suite, which are intruded to the west by Late Cretaceous granites or granodiorite.
Two lenticular quartz veins, up to 1.8 metres but generally less than 10 centimetres thick, occur in greenish schistose rocks. Pyrite and native gold have been reported. A selected sample assayed 54.17 grams per tonne gold and 240 grams per tonne silver (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1918, page 94).
In 1989, the north portion of the Pacific Sentinel Gold Corp. property was explored in the hopes of finding the 'Callaghan' veins, in addition to new showings (Assessment Report 19887). Two prominent hills and the intervening ground were prospected. In the utmost north portion of the Willison Bay claims block, the large hill forming the east side of West Bay was found to consist primarily of pyroxene-porphyritic volcanics, generally unmineralized although minor fracture-controlled malachite was observed. Subordinate quartz veining without visible sulphide was also observed. The Callaghan veins were never found but were thought to occur very close to the shore of West Bay which would have placed them outside the limits of Pacific Sentinel's ground. MapPlace (BC Geological Survey Branch) indicates the large hill forming the east side of West Bay to be part of fault bound slice, possibly consisting of deformed Stikine assemblage, and described as greenstone and greenschist metamorphic rocks of Mississippian to Triassic age.
WORK HISTORY.
The Callaghan vein (104M 021) was discovered in 1910. An excerpt from the GSC Summary Report for 1910 (page 56) follows: "The Callahan group is owned by Mrs. Callahan, and consists of six claims, which adjoin the Laverdiere group and extend in a northen direction to the upper end of Torres channel, known as West Bay. The contact between the Mt. Stevens' rocks and the Coast Range intrusives passes through these claims, but is in most places concealed by superficial materials, and by the forest growth; where it is exposed, however, ore occurs in its vicinity, much resembling that on the Laverdiere property. These contact deposits have not been developed, however, and the assessment work has been performed on various quartz veins, generally lens-shaped, that occur mainly in greenish schistose rocks, and are prevailingly only several centimetres but in places are as much as 1.8 metres in thickness and show generally only a small amount of pyrite. It is claimed that these veins contain also native gold."
In 1918, Mrs. Callaghan held 6 claims, extending south from Willison Bay along the west side of Hoboe Creek to the Laverdiere property (104M 022). The only work reported is some open cutting near the shore of Willison Bay.
The Molly showings (104M 029, 051) were discovered in the late 1950s to the southwest of the Callaghan. Cominco Ltd. staked the Molly showings in the early 1970s and conducted diamond drilling mapping, geochemical, and geophysical surveys.
In 1989, Pacific Sentinel Gold Corp conducted prospecting in three main areas of their Willison Bay project (Atlin Lake): (a) the area near the West Bay of Torres Channel, directly north of the Laverdiere (104M 022) showings , in the vicinity of the Callaghan veins (104M 021); (b) the southwest portion of the property; and (c) the southeast portion of the property from the eastern border down to Hoboe Creek where the Mussen showing (104M 030) is located (Assessment 19887).
In 1990, prospecting and sampling was conducted by Equity Silver Mines on the Ara property, which contained the Callaghan showing (Assessment Report 20134). No sampling of the Callaghan was reported.
See Laverdiere (104M 022) for related geological and work history details.
