Project :: Skillet Creek
Silver, Lead, Zinc
Salmo, B.C.
The Skillet Creek project is situated approximately 15 km northwest of Salmo and 12 km off highway #3 on a gravel road and is a prospective target for a deposit of silver lead and zinc.
The Skillet Creek property was first explored in the 1890’s but no historical records were found. Liberty located three small previously trenched areas of good mineralization on the property but no record of sample information was found and there are no government Minfiles on the property.
Liberty was attracted to the property by the presence of three large rock piles beside their respective trenches with numerous large sub-rounded boulders scattered around the open cuts. Liberty sampled three of the large mineralized boulders which returned high grade assay results of 790 g/t Ag, 10.08% Pb, 8.47% Zn; 1045 g/t Ag, 12.8% Pb, 9.1% Zn; and 535 g/t Ag, 7.37% Pb, 7.83% Zn. (Eco Tech Lab Certificate of Assay 2008-1206).
A more comprehensive grab sampling program of rocks within these stockpiles resulted in high silver values via ICP methodology. The total average grade of the stockpiles was calculated to be; 18.15 g/t silver, 0.35% lead, 0.20% zinc and 0.02% copper from 120 grab samples. The volume of the three stockpiles was unknown, but a conservative estimate would be less than 300 tonnes.
Three small trenched areas of good mineralization were exposed on the property but no sample information found for them. Results from surface chip sampling of the excavations conducted by Liberty during the 2008 site visit are as follows.
Skillet Creek Chip samples
| Sample # | Ag (g/t) | Pb (%) | Zn (%) | Cu (%) |
| 203692 | 6.2 | 0.08 | 0.10 | 0.02 |
| 203693 | 44.2 | 0.28 | 0.56 | 0.07 |
| 203696 | 14.9 | 1.33 | 1.94 | 0.03 |
| 203697 | 14.1 | 0.90 | 0.79 | 0.02 |
Geologically, the Skillet Creek tenures occur near a lobe of the Nelson batholith made up of coarse grained porphyritic granodiorite-granite which is composed of abundant white orthoclase phenocrysts. The groundmass of the batholith has been determined to be orthoclase, plagioclase and quartz with minor amounts of biotite and hornblende. The Nelson batholith intrudes the sedimentary rocks and the mafic volcanics of the Rossland Formation.
Numerous dikes and sills of porphyritic rhyolite, quartz latite, dacite and basalt occur for 17 km outward from the Erie Creek basin. A majority of the mineralization in the area occurs in a biotite hornfels at the contacts of the Nelson Batholith and these “Erie Creek” dike swarms.
A feldspar porphyry stock was noted in the central portion of the Skillet Creek tenures. The porphyry appeared to be a plug or thick sill that intrudes the sedimentary rocks. The phenocrysts occur in a fine grain crystalline greenish matrix of dioritic composition. Four hornblende porphyry sills, up to 4.0 meters in width, were located in the northeast section of the property.
The main zones of mineralization occur in a gossanous hornfels at the contact of the porphyry and the greywacke sediments. Pyrite and pyrrhotite is found throughout the zones as tiny seams and/or disseminations. Minor chalcopyrite and galena mineralization are found with pyrite in siliceous shears containing small lenses of quartz.
Accessibility to the area is quite good with plentiful logging roads throughout. Infrastructure in the area is fair, with Salmo being nearby. Hydro power was not noticed in the tenure region, however, railway and transportation is conveniently local along the highway #3 corridor.