Abstract:

Margaux Resources Kootenay Arc project is located in the West Kootenay region of southern British Columbia, near the community of Salmo. The project encompasses approximately 19,000 hectares. Its southern boundary coincides with the Canada-USA border, with claims extending to the north for about 30 km.

In a regional sense, the project straddles the deformation zone at the boundary between the accreted Quesnel terrane and sediments that were deposited off the western margin of ancestral North America. That deformation zone is locally referred to as the Kootenay Arc and is well known for the abundance of lead-zinc mineralization. Numerous historic mines are located in the belt, including the Jersey mine on Margaux’s property. The area hosts a diversity of mineralization, including tungsten skarn, gold skarn, and orogenic gold, in addition to the Kootenay Arc lead-zinc deposits.
A deep-seated transverse basement structure, the Vulcan structure, trends northeast through Margaux’s project area. Intermittent reactivation of this structure, from the Cambrian through the Eocene, has influenced emplacement of intrusives as well as mineralization. It accounts for the diversity in terms of commodity, style and age of mineralization, as well as explaining the increased concentration of deposits in the southern portion of the Kootenay Arc.

Stratabound lead-zinc “Kootenay Arc type deposits” represent the oldest mineralization in the project area. These are hosted by limestone (Reeves member) of the Lower Cambrian Laib Formation. Margaux’s Jersey mine is an example of this type of deposit. It has past-production totaling 7.97 million tons at average grades of 1.95% Pb and 3.83% Zn. At the Jersey mine, mineralization can be traced near continuously for about 1800 m in a north-south direction and about 600 m in an east-west direction. The deposits are somewhat enigmatic and there is ongoing debate about whether they are syngenetic or epigenetic. Deposit-scale work suggests a syngenetic origin, with later remobilization of mineralization.

In the early Jurassic, Quesnellia started to dock onto the continent margin. This was accompanied by a period of intense deformation. The earlier stratabound lead-zinc mineralization was folded, along with the host rocks. Because of the plasticity of the sulfides, they deformed easily and were concentrated into fold hinges.

Towards the end of the collision event, the Nelson suite of intrusives was emplaced and was closely followed by an orogenic gold event. Two of the Margaux’s properties are examples of orogenic gold veins, the Sheep Creek and the Bayonne properties. The Sheep Creek Camp sits just east of the Jersey property and has historic production of 736,000 oz Au at an average grade of 0.43 oz/t Au. The Bayonne property is located further east. It is also a past-producer, with similar grades to Sheep Creek, but a much smaller tonnage.

The collision event was complete by the time a series of Cretaceous intrusives were emplaced. Those intrusives are associated with skarn alteration and mineralization in the district. At the Jersey property, widespread skarn alteration occurs where these intrusives interact with calcareous sediments within the Truman argillite package, stratigraphically below the Reeves limestone. The entire mine area is rooted by a large intrusive body. Tungsten skarn forms in a proximal setting, close to the intrusive contact, while gold skarn mineralization occurs in a more distal portion of the skarn system. There has been relatively little exploration directed at the gold skarn, but some encouraging initial results, including one hole that returned 24.98 g/t Au over 10.2 metres.

Finally, potential exists for Carlin-type mineralization. In the late 1990’s the BC government explored the concept of Carlin-type mineralization in BC and showed that the Kootenay Arc region had the same geological setting as the Carlin District in Nevada. There’s been very little effort by the exploration community to look for this type of deposit in the Kootenay’s, despite many project geologists noting widespread intense silicification within limestone and limy sediments. Several such zones occur on Margaux’s property, with elevated gold, silver and encouraging trace element geochemistry.

Margaux Resources is well-funded and plans an aggressive exploration program in 2017.

Bio (Linda Caron, M.Sc., P.Eng)

Linda has recently joined Margaux Resources as Vice President of Exploration. She has over 30 years of experience in the mineral exploration industry and is well known for her extensive work in Southern British Columbia. Most recently, she was the senior geologist for Kinross on their Grizzly-Greenwood gold project. Linda attended the University of British Columbia, where she obtained a B.A.Sc. in Geological Engineering (Mineral Exploration Option), and the University of Calgary where she received a M.Sc. in Geology. She is a Professional Engineer registered in the Province of British Columbia.