Top 10 Reasons to have TRO in Portfolio: #9 #9: Thor project (Blue Bell, True Fissure, St. Elmo, Broadview and Great Northern) saw extensive Underground exploration, but only minimal mining.
A Forgotten District
The Silver Cup Mining District is located east of Upper Arrow Lake, in an area of very rugged terrain. The District is a cluster of deposits and mineral occurrences that is approximately 40 miles in length, and starts southeast of Revelstoke on the Trans-Canada Highway and extends to the southeast end of Trout Lake. The District consists of three mineral belts. The largest, and most important is the Central Mineral Belt, and this includes a number of old prospects and mines, the largest being the Meridian/Eva, True Fissure (Thor), Silver Cup and Triune mines. Both the Silver Cup and Triune saw significant production history, and the old workings that constitute the Thor project (Blue Bell, True Fissure, St. Elmo, Broadview and Great Northern) saw extensive Underground exploration, but only minimal mining.
Two major structures dominated the area, the first of these is known as the Finkle Syncline and the second is the Silver Cup Anticline. The age of these folds is disputed, but they are definitely younger than Jurassic in age, since the Silver Cup Anticline at Thor (part of the Silver Cup Anticline) has deformed and folded tuffaceous volcanic rocks at Thor that have been age dated as Mississippian Age (Green Tuff Unit). The Silver Cup Anticline and the Finkle Syncline can be clearly seen to the east of the Thor deposit on the east side of Great Northern Mountain at Thor, and form major bedrock structures in the area.
From a comparative perspective, the
Silver Cup and Thor deposits are nearly identical since they both occur on the east flank of major anticlines, and have nearly identical mineralogy, rock types and ore tenors. Taranis geologists speculate that both may have been interconnected at one time, and may have been parts of the same mineral deposit that have been folded and faulted (Sambo Property).
see: https://taranisresources.com/
A Legacy Rich in Silver, Gold, Lead, Zinc and Copper
Historically, the Silver Cup Mining District was explored and developed for high-grade silver deposits. Although lead and gold were of some interest, silver was in demand. The figure below shows the relative value/tonne of each mineral, shown as a pie chart next to each of the prospects in the area. Many of the mines in the area produced ores that had upwards of 300 Oz. silver/ton, and the ore was "rawhided" from the mines to Trout Lake and loaded on paddle wheel steamers that traversed the lake to Kaslo. The St. Elmo mine at Thor was so high-grade, donkeys were used to move ore 8 km down the road through the town of Ferguson, and finally to Trout Lake. There it was loaded in burlap sacks for transport.
Zinc (occurring in the mineral sphalerite) was considered highly detrimental, and smelters at the time imposed huge penalties on any ore that was delivered to them that had even moderate levels of zinc. Fast forward to 2017, and zinc is considered a valuable commodity, and even low-grade ore by 1900 standards is considered high-grade ore today!
Using modern mining methods, mining companies try to exploit every metal of commercial interest, and this includes precious, base metals and by-products that can be found in minute concentrations in the ore. The breakdown of metals in a deposit becomes very important as metallurgy and commercial mining are considered. The metals breakdown can also have a major impact on the how the deposit is mined from an environmental permitting perspective.
<<< Historically, the town of Ferguson and Trout Lake EACH had 1,000 people - to support the mining! >>>