The Congress mine is centred near the north shore of
Carpenter Lake, latitude 50° 52' 00", longitude 122° 43' 35", west of the mouth of
Gun Creek, six kilometres northeast of
Gold Bridge on
Highway 40 (
Figure 10a). The property was first visited in
1985.
Geological mapping was completed by the writer during several visits to the property in
1986 and Ace adit was examined and sampled. The
Howard adits and Lou decline surveyed in July
1988.
History
The property, consisting of the
Congress mine and several nearby mineral prospects, is owned jointly by
Levon Resources
Limited and Veronex Resources Limited.
The claim block includes a number of reverted Crown-granted claims including Stibnite 1-4,
Snowflake fraction,
Turner 1, Turner 2,
Robert fraction,
David fraction, Nap 1, 3 to 9 and Ace 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 28.
The history of the
Congress property began about 1910 when the 'Northstar-University' vein was found, following the earlier discovery of placer gold on Gun Creek. The Congress vein was staked by
E.J. Taylor and J. Shuster in 1913 and, according to Cooke et al.(1986),
C.H. Allan and
Associates produced a small amount of gold-antimony ore from a short adit. Congress
Gold Mines Limited acquired the property from T. Turner in 1933 and developed three adit levels on the Congress zone between 1934 and
1937. During this period 940 tonnes of ore was tested at the
Wayside mill; this yielded 2.58 kilograms of gold, 1.31 kilograms of silver and 38 kilograms of copper.
From 1946 to
1950 Sheep Creek Gold Mines Limited managed the property and developed two additional underground levels at the Congress mine and connected the workings with an inclined shaft. In
1959 the Howard vein was discovered 900 metres west of the Congress mine. Ownership of the property passed to the Ace Mining
Company Limited then, under option agreement, to
Bralorne Pioneer Mines Limited from 1960 to 1964. In this period Bralorne Pioneer Mines Limited did underground work on the Howard vein and continued drifting at the Congress mine while also carrying out programs of surface and underground drilling. The Howard vein was drifted on for about
160 metres at this time, also several new mineralized zones were discovered, including the
Bluff zone northeast of the Congress mine and the
Paul zone on the north side of Gun Creek, 1.
5 kilometres north of the previous discoveries. In
1965 the Ace Mining
Company drilled the Paul zone and did other prospecting on the property.
Additional exploration was undertaken by Rayrock
Exploration Limited. in 1964 and
Alice Arm Mining Limited in
1972. In
1975 Alice Arm was reorganized as New Congress Resources, Limited and, over the next five years completed much drilling and drifting on the Howard zone. The property was acquired by Levon Resources Limited in
1982 and under option agreement Veronex Resources Limited funded continuation of the exploration program. The principal exploration has been diamond drilling and underground development of the Howard and Lou zones in
1984 to 88, and a bioleaching pilot project in 1988 and
1989. (Due to the overall fine-grained nature of the ore and the association of gold and silver with arsenopyrite and stibnite, a 250,000-litre capacity biological leaching pilot plant was installed in the
Plateau Pond area near the west boundary of the property with the collaboration of
Giant Bay Resources Limited. A 600-tonne test sample for this plant was mined from the Howard and Ace workings of the mine). No further work has been done on the property because of disappointing results at a time of low metal prices.
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Description
The Congress property is underlain by a panel of Pioneer pillow lavas and associated basalt feeder dikes and small cogenetic gabbro bodies (
Church, 1986a; Cooke, 1986c). These rocks are bounded on the east and west by cataclastic facies of the Fergusson assemblage, including milled ribbon chert, phyllite, graphitic schist, and some marble lenses (Figure 11a). Feldspar porphyry dikes of
Tertiary age are conspicuous in the mine workings as well as areas of fracturing and faulting. The ore is relatively simple consisting mainly of pyrite, arsenopyrite and stibnite in discontinuous northerly trending quartz veins accompanied by carbonate alteration.
- published: 26 Jul 2015
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