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Barker Minerals Ltd.
Ten years ago, Louis Doyle found gold in drainage outlets along a new logging road. Since Mr. Doyle's discovery in 1993, the Company has invested more than $4.0 million exploring in this mineralized district, which has potential to host not only volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits, but also gold and platinum group metal (PGM) deposits. The properties are located along the southern extension of the historic Cariboo Gold District in East-Central British Columbia, Canada, which has yielded 3.7 million ounces of gold to date.
The mineralization is considered by Strathcona Mineral Services Ltd., the Geological Survey of Canada, the B.C. Geological Survey and Major Mining Companies to be similar to other massive sulphide districts from around the world.
The Company maintains an exploration office in the town of Likely, 45 km to the southwest of the Ace project. Access to the property is excellent, as a graded logging road, as well numerous secondary logging roads run through the property. Weldwood, a private company, is actively logging in the area, principally during the winter months, and has been very cooperative to the Company. The Company's Ace project is at an elevation of approximately 1,000 meters, enabling year-round advanced-stage exploration and mining.
Property Description and Location
The mineral exploration property consists of 4,275 mineral claim units, being approximately 264,099 acres. The mineral claims comprising the property are 100% owned by Barker Minerals Ltd. The property contains 16 mineral exploration project areas, some of which are currently under active exploration, including the Ace, Frank Creek, Sellers Creek
Road (SCR) and Quesnel Platinum project areas.
Accessibility, Climate, Local Resources, Infrastructure and Physiography
Williams Lake is an intermediate-sized city, which is served by Highway 97, the B.C. Railway, a major hydroelectric power grid and a modern airport. By road, Likely is 65 km northeast of 150 Mile House on Highway 97. Access to the Ace, Frank Creek and SCR exploration areas is via gravel logging roads bearing northeast from Likely. The distances from Likely to the main showings are as follows: Ace, 45 km; Frank Creek, 25 km; SCR, 22 km. Access to the Quesnel Platinum project is mainly via gravel logging roads southeast from Quesnel, at a distance of 25 km. In Likely, Barker Minerals maintains a property that includes a house, a bunkhouse, a workshop and a few tents. The house serves as a field office.
The property is situated in the central part of the Quesnel Highland between the eastern edge of the Interior Plateau and the western foothills of the Columbia Mountains. This area contains rounded mountains that are transitional between the rolling plateaus to the west and the rugged Cariboo Mountains to the east. Pleistocene and Recent ice sheets flowed away from the high mountains to the east over these plateaus and down to the southwest (Cariboo River), west (Little River) and northeast (Quesnel Lake), carving U-shaped valleys. The elevation ranges from 700-1650 m.
Precipitation in the region is heavy, as rain in the summer and snow in the winter. Drainage is to the west via the Cariboo, Little and Quesnel Rivers to the Fraser River. Quesnel Lake, the main scenic and topographic feature in the region, is a deep, long, forked, glacier-carved lake with an outlet at 725 m elevation. Vegetation is old-growth spruce, fir, pine, hemlock and cedar forest in all but the alpine regions of the higher mountains (mainly above 1400 m elevation). Weldwood has been actively logging fir, spruce and pine in the area, principally during winters, and has provided outlines of existing and planned roads and cut-blocks in and near the project areas.
Property Summary
The property is located 95 km northeast of Williams Lake in Central British Columbia. This large mineral tenure holding consists of 4,275 mineral claim units (approximately 264,099 acres). The property contains the idle Providence Mine, classified as a 'Past Producer' of silver, lead, zinc and gold. The property also contains the Cariboo (a.k.a. Maybe) Prospect, which is classified as a 'Developed Prospect'. This is a lead-zinc (Zn-Pb) replacement-style deposit estimated to contain approximately 400,000 tonnes at an estimated grade of 4% Zn+Pb, using a 1% Zn+Pb cutoff. The property contains the Ace Prospect, which was discovered during 1993 by Louis Doyle, President and CEO of Barker Minerals and is host to what has been described by BC Geological Survey geologists as Besshi-type volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineralization and auriferous (gold-bearing) quartz veins. The property contains several known bedrock mineral occurrences, classified as 'showings' by the BC Geological Survey, including the Frank Creek VMS showing discovered by Louis Doyle in 1999, the Sellers VMS showing discovered by Louis Doyle in 2000, the Big silver-lead-gold showing, the Comin Throu Bear lead-zinc-silver showing, the Peacock gold-bearing quartz vein showing, the Maud alkalic porphyry copper-gold showing and the Trump silver-lead showing.
The eastern half of the property contains three VMS exploration project areas, the Ace, Frank Creek and SCR areas, each of which contain multiple exploration targets as indicated by geochemical, geophysical and geological data and which have been the focuses of Barker Minerals' exploration programs during the period 1993 to the present. The western half of the property contains the mineral claims hosting Barker Minerals' Quesnel Platinum Project.
Within the Ace project area, surface geological, geochemical and geophysical surveys and drilling have defined a belt of metamorphosed and deformed, felsic volcanic rocks containing massive and stringer sulphide mineralization, within which are anomalous concentrations of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc. The belt is open along strike in both directions. Geophysical surveys have defined another major target located to the southeast of this belt in an apparently outcropless area containing encouraging soil geochemistry. Trenching and drilling are recommended on these targets.
Within the Frank Creek project area, a massive sulphide layer 1.2 m thick outcrops in a zone of overturned volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Several significant, combined geophysical and geochemical anomalies are present, one of which is coincident with the area in which the massive sulphide outcrop occurs. Trenching and drilling are recommended to test these targets.
The SCR project area contains semi-massive sulfide mineralization in altered volcanic rocks. This project area also contains coincident base-metal soil anomalies and HLEM geophysical anomalies in an area of sparse outcrop. Further surface exploration in this area is recommended, to be followed by trenching and drilling if warranted.
The Cariboo Zn-Pb deposit is comprised of replacement style Zn-Pb mineralization hosted in carbonate rocks of the lower strata of the Cariboo terrane. Diamond drilling conducted during the 1980's outlined a 400,000 tonne deposit grading 4.0% Zn+Pb. Further surface mapping should be conducted in this area in order to help gain an understanding of the deformation history of the deposit and the potential for extensions of the known zone.
The western part of the property (Quesnel Platinum Project area) was staked for its platinum group element (PGE) potential. It contains zones of anomalous and intense copper concentrations in mafic volcanic rocks and may contain some of the mafic to ultramafic source rocks for some of the platinum group minerals (PGMs) recovered from the predominantly gold-bearing placers associated with the Quesnel River and its tributaries. Further geochemical and geological surveys are recommended in order to explore for bedrock PGE mineralization and in order to explore the zone of mafic volcanic rocks containing anomalous concentrations of copper.
Work on the property to date includes geological mapping, stream-sediment and soil surveys, ground magnetometer and EM studies (VLF-EM, HLEM), airborne magnetometer and EM studies, prospecting, and, in some areas of potential economic interest, trenching and diamond drilling.
The Ace Prospect mineralization and Frank Creek and SCR mineral showings are of the VMS type. The Cariboo Prospect hosts a replacement style Zn-Pb deposit in carbonate rocks of the Cariboo terrane. Scattered stream-sediment anomalies situated within the claims have not been followed up in detail. The Quesnel Platinum Project areas may contain some of the source mafic and ultramafic rocks for PGE minerals occurring in numerous placer platinum occurrences associated with the Quesnel River and its tributaries. These claims also host mafic volcanic rocks that in one area contain anomalous concentrations of copper.
Deposit Types Sought:
The company is exploring the property for the following types of deposits
Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) Deposits
Conformable, semi-massive to massive sulphide deposits of the Besshi type occur in the Kootenay terrane (Goldstream deposit), in the Yukon-Tanana and Nisling terranes and in the Klondike schist. Recent BC Geological Survey work suggests that these may all be part of an elongate terrane that also includes the Barkerville terrane (Hoy and Preto, 1996). Host rocks are deformed complexly and metamorphosed to micaceous quartzite, phyllite and schist, commonly graphitic. Marble and meta-volcanic rock lenses are common. Besshi-type deposits contain pyrite, pyrrhotite, magnetite and chalcopyrite, local sphalerite and rarely galena. Host rocks are mainly sedimentary, commonly siltstone, quartzite and carbonaceous schist near amphibolite (metamorphosed mafic volcanic rocks) at the VMS target at the Ace prospect may be of a different type; there, felsic volcanic rocks are present, mafic volcanic rocks are absent or altered so intensely that they cannot be recognized, and galena and sphalerite are important minerals. It is a known fact that VMS deposits normally come in clusters which make up a VMS District.
Zn-Pb Replacement
The sulphide-rich layers of mineralization of Barker Minerals' Cariboo Zn-Pb deposit have a higher-grade central section up to 1 m. thick of more massive sphalerite with scattered patches of galena, with dispersed and vein sphalerite-galena mineralization extending 2-3 m on either side. The high Zn/Pb ratio, moderate silver content and low gold content are similar to those of many replacement carbonate-hosted Zn-Pb deposits, including those in the Early Cambrian platform carbonates of the Kootenay arc.
Vein and Replacement Gold
Much of the lode and placer gold production from the Wells and Barkerville areas was from the eastern part of the Barkerville terrane, where most of the important present day lode gold prospects also occur. At the historic mines, the strata trend 315º, dip 45ºNE and are cut by north to northeast-trending normal faults dipping 60ºE. The zones of economically important quartz veins are contained in graphite-bearing layers near a contact with carbonate-bearing layers. Two sets of quartz veins contain pyrite and gold: transverse veins striking 030º and diagonal veins striking 070º; these contained 15-25% pyrite and 0.3-0.5 oz/st Au. Two other sets of quartz veins do not contain pyrite or gold. Pyrite in altered wall rock contained proportionally less gold. Replacement bodies of auriferous pyrite in carbonate rocks (mainly in the Island Mountain Mine north of Jack of Clubs Lake) accounted for nearly 1/3 of the lode gold mined. Other common sulphides in the mines are arsenopyrite, galena, sphalerite, cosalite (PbBiS), scheelite and bismuthinite (BiS2). Free gold commonly occurs with nests of cosalite. Gangue minerals are quartz and ankerite/siderite. Wallrock alteration minerals are ankerite and sericite. |
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Government Comments:
"The Ace's host rock lithology and metal content suggest an affinity to well explored gold quartz veins of the Yanks Peak and Cow Mountain (IWA) areas to the north. The geological setting, style of mineralization and geochemistry suggest an analogy to the "Plutonic-associated" or "Pogo-Type" Gold vein model."
Bob Lane and Ken McDonald
April 2000
Regional Geologist, Prince George, B.C., Dept. Of Mines
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Magmatic PGE mineralization
Some of the PGM contents of the Quesnel River placer deposits are probably derived from ultramafic rocks situated along the Eureka fault between the Quesnel terrane and the Barkerville terrane and from mafic and ultramafic rocks in the Quesnel terrane. Barker Minerals' claims in this area were staked because of potentially favorable geology, the recent dramatic increase in the price of PGMs and the apparent lack of previous PGE exploration in this potentially favorable area. Magmatic, dunite-peridotite-hosted PGE mineralization is sought. |
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Initial Professional Opinion
"During my initial property examination, a dunite/peridotite ultra-mafic intrusion situated in one of Barker's project areas was observed to be the cause of one such aero-magnetic anomaly. This scarce and unique type of rock is a potential host for Platinum, Nickel and Chromium mineralization, such as that found in several localities worldwide (Tulameen, BC; Good News Bay, Alaska; Ural Mts., former USSR; Bushveld; Southern Africa)."
Dr. Bruce Perry Ph.D.,P.Geo, FGAC
December 18, 2000 |
Technical Information:
Rock samples
Reconnaissance rock samples were all grab samples. Outcrops and boulders containing sulphide mineralization were sampled by grab or chip sampling. All exposures of bedrock in trenched areas that contain sulphide mineralization were channel sampled. All drill core containing sulphide mineralization associated with the VMS target was sawn in half with a diamond saw. One half of each sample interval was sent out for assay, while the other half was saved for future reference.
Geochemical soil and stream-sediment samples
Soil samples were collected with grub hoe and trowel, from near the top of the "B" soil horizon, or as near to that horizon as could be reasonably determined under field circumstances. Samples were collected and placed in standard kraft paper envelopes manufactured for the purpose. The sample bags were labeled with the station and line. On return to base camp in Likely, the samples were air-dried in their bags prior to shipment to the lab. At the lab the samples were oven-dried, then sieved to -80 mesh and aliquots taken for testing.
Stream-sediment samples were collected by digging silt from the active steam bed, screening out coarse material in the field and sending the wet sample to the lab, where the -80 mesh fraction was obtained and analyzed.
Factors to affect accuracy and reliability of samples
A few samples of drill core were from intervals for which drill recovery was significantly less than 100%. These include some of the intervals of massive sulphide.
Sample quality and representation
Samples are of high quality and are representative of the population from which they were collected.
Geological controls
Sampling of drill core was mainly from felsic volcanic rocks and massive sulphide, with a few samples from interlayered limestone near the stratigraphic top of the section. As the zone of mineralization was up to 80 m wide, sampling was done mainly at 1-metre intervals, except where significant geological contacts indicated that sample borders should be at such contacts, e.g., of the massive sulphide.
Sample Preparation, Analyses and Security
Core samples were cut and bagged at Likely under the supervision of John Payne, Ph. D. They were stored in a locked garage until shipment. Contract companies specializing in geochemical exploration collected the soil and stream sediment samples. Barker staff or contract geologists collected rock samples.
Barker Minerals Ltd. personnel shipped samples to the analytical laboratories.
Pulps, rejects and rock reference examples are stored at Barker Minerals' facilities in Langley. The drill core from the 1998 drill program is stored at the company's field camp in Likely, BC.
All assay and chemical analytical work was performed by certified laboratories. Acme Analytical Laboratories of Vancouver, B. C, performed most of the soil, stream and rock assays. Some check assaying was completed by Activation Laboratories in Ontario and Chemex of Vancouver. The results compared well.
Analytical Procedures:
Fire assay
Traditional 30g lead fire assay followed by acid dissolution of the bead and ICP analysis of the resultant solution was used to determine gold, platinum, palladium in rock samples.
ICP
Normally Acme Laboratories provides a 30-element inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) analysis for soil and rock samples. The ICP method involves dissolving 0.5 grams of -80 mesh sample in aqua regia (1hr @ 95ºC), and the resulting solution is then aspirated into an ICP emission spectrograph, which determines the concentrations of the 30 elements. A standard "wet" geo-analytical method involving dissolution in aqua regia, extraction by MIBK and determination by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy was used to determine trace geochemical concentrations of gold in soil samples.
Ultra-trace ICP
Sample preparation and dissolution are the same as for standard ICP analyses. However, much larger splits are used, usually 10 grams. This allows analysis of a broader range of elements with much greater sensitivity and accuracy, using the same ICP emission spectrograph.
Hydride Method
Sample preparation and dissolution are the same as for ICP with 0.5 gram splits. As, Bi, Sb, Se, Te and Ge are then precipitated in a 50% ammonium hydroxide solution. After centrifuging, the precipitate is separated and re-dissolved in aqua regia. The hydrides of the analytes are then volatilized with borohydride solution, and determinations are made via the ICP emission spectrograph.
Whole rock analysis
Samples are dried and crushed to -80 mesh. Then a 0.2 gram sub-sample is placed in a crucible with LiBO2 flux, and melted during 25 minutes at 10250C. The molten material is then dissolved in nitric acid, and the resulting solution is then aspirated into the ICP emission spectrograph for determination of the concentrations of major oxides and elements.
Check Assays and Petrographical Studies
High-grade gold samples were analyzed by a second lab as a confirmation of the high-grade gold bearing nature of the samples. Selected high-grade gold samples were examined by the Geological Association of Canada (Harris 1995), Dr. Payne (Vancouver Petrographics, 1994), and Dr. Skupinski (Calgary B.C., 1994-5) whose petrographic reports confirmed the presence of gold and its associated minerals.
Occasionally, when high-grade gold results were obtained, Acme normally ran a repeat analysis of a sub-sample of the pulp of the sample.
Barker occasionally submitted duplicate samples in order to check the precision of the analytical work being performed. In these instances, a rock sample would be divided into 3 similar portions, with 2 going for analyses with different sample numbers to the same or different laboratories and the 3rd sample being stored for future reference or confirmation purposes.
The sampling, sample preparation, security and analytical procedures are adequate for the present stage of exploration of the property.
Locations of mineralization and important samples collected on the property have been verified by independent consultants, Major Mining Companies and government geologists.
The analytical laboratories used standard reference materials and calibration solutions, repeat measurements on solutions and re-assays of pulps in order to insure quality control and data verification in regard to chemical analyses. Occasional cross-check analyses were performed by other certified laboratories, and the results compared favorably. Certificates of Assay were issued in regard to all chemical analytical data and these are appended to the various Assessment Reports pertaining to Barker Minerals' exploration of the property as filed with the Mineral Titles Branch of the Government of the Province of British Columbia.
The geophysical surveys were conducted to industry standards by contracted professional geophysicists, including concurrent in-field checks on the validity of the data. Barker Minerals' staff have occasionally verified geophysical data via independent traverses with its own equipment.
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Numerous samples were collected and analyzed independently by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), the British Columbia Geological Survey (BCGS) and several Major Mining Companies as results of property reviews and visits, and the analytical results obtained independently compare well to Barker Minerals' results for similar material collected from the same locales. |
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"We commend you for the highly professional manner in which you have carried out your exploration and compiled the resulting data," and "The property clearly has potential to host a VMS deposit, and Barker Minerals has systematically and methodically advanced the project."
Major Mining Company
December 19, 2000
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