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The Fox tungsten-molybdenum property is located approximately 70 kilometres northeast of 100 Mile House and 25 kilometres east of the former Boss Mountain molybdenum mine, in the south Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada. Happy Creek owns a 100 percent in the 24,260 hectare (242 square kilometres) property. It is accessible via existing paved and all-weather gravel logging roads that run through the property.
Happy Creek acquired a 100% interest in the Fox property in 2005. Between 2006 and 2007 the Company made a considerable effort on the property, and a new tungsten-molybdenum system was confirmed by drilling in the Nightcrawler-Discovery zones in November 2007.
Geology
The Fox property is underlain by metasediment, calcareous metasediment and limestone of the Snowshoe group, Proterozoic to Early Paleozoic in age. The calcareous metasediment with limestone is a mappable unit approximately 80 metres or more in thickness and has been traced on surface for approximately 16 kilometres through the property. It has a general north to northwesterly strike and gentle to tight folding has resulted in a variably gentle to steep dip. These rocks are favourable for hosting skarn, a calc silicate rock formed by mineral replacement and addition due to chemical exchanges between a hot, mineralized fluid and a receptive, carbonate bearing rock. The favourable calcareous metasediment is cut by a multi-phase quartz monzonite intrusive rock that is importantly very similar in age to the boss Mountain stock that is responsible for molybdenum-tungsten mineralization at the Boss Mountain mine to the west. Although tungsten is well known to occur with or near to molybdenum deposits, at the Boss Mountain mine the host rocks were not favourable to produce well-mineralized tungsten skarn, whereas on the Fox property they are.
Scheelite (calcium tungstate) and molybdenite (molybdenum sulphide) occur within calc silicate, skarn, fracture-fillings and quartz veins. Dykes and sills of the multi-phase Deception stock has cut the metasedimentary rock for over one kilometre from the main body of quartz monzonite. Hornfels accompanied by pyrite-pyrrhotite can be observed for up to two kilometres to the south and north of the stock.
Results from the first ever drilling in 2007 at the Nightcrawler-Discovery zone include 5.0 metres containing 0.33% WO3, 2.0 metres of 0.74% WO3, 2.0 metres of 0.48% WO3, 0.50 metres of 1.8% WO3, and 0.45 metres of 1.13% WO3. In addition, two intercepts that are approximately 150 metres apart returned 1.7 metres of 0.51% molybdenum and 0.50 metres of 0.51% molybdenum, respectively. Machine trenching was unable to reach bedrock in this area however, tabular shaped blocks from near bedrock returned grades up to 12.778% molybdenum and 5.46% WO3 in grab samples. Mineralization at the Nightcrawler-Discovery zone occurs over an area approximately 500 metres in width and over 1.5 kilometres in length and remains undefined and open in extent.
Approximately four kilometres to the north of the Nightcrawler-Discovery zone, rock, silt and soil geochemical sampling in the Ridley Creek area have returned positive results. Here, three outcrops over a distance of approximately two kilometres have returned 0.25 metres containing 7.11% WO3, 3.5 metres containing 2.56% WO3 and 1.0metre containing 3.7% WO3, respectively. In addition, quartz veins in an intrusive rock contain up to 0.17% molybdenum that are similar to those at the Discovery zone, four kilometres to the south. Encouraging soil and rock geochemical results covering an area approximately 500 metres by 2.0 kilometres in dimension confirm the Ridley Creek area is similar to the Nightcrawler-Discovery zone, and adds significant size to the overall mineralized system.
Several geological aspects of the Fox property suggest the presence of an underlying bulk tonnage (porphyry) molybdenum deposit. Analyses have returned values up to 0.90 percent fluorine, an essential component of the large and high grade molybdenum deposits in Colorado. The frequency and intensity of sulphide-bearing quartz veins, k-feldspar and muscovite/sericite alteration, and its similar age and associated tungsten and molybdenum mineralization as the Boss Mountain mine, are very positive indicators for large scale bulk tonnage molybdenum.
The results to date suggest the Fox property is underlain by a tungsten-molybdenum system that is approximately ten kilometres by three kilometres in dimension. The favourable geology, scale and grades that are in proximity to industrial-based infrastructure reflect positively on its economic potential, and is thought to reflect a significant new prospect in western Canada.
Page last updated: July 2009
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