Mineralized zones on the Jason property are stratifrom, sediment hosed Pb-Zn-barite deposits that occur in a Late Devonian age marine carbonaceous shale and turbidite sequence. The Jason Property is located 400 km northeast of Whitehorse near Macmillan Pass on the Canol Road. Since the discovery of mineralization in 1975, eighty-nine diamond drill holes have delineated three mineral deposits. In order of their discovery, they are known as the Main, South and End zones. Geological reserves indicated and inferred for the three zones total 14.1 million tonnes averaging 7.1% Pb, 6.6% Zn and 79.9 g/t Ag. The following questions are the focus of the study:: 1) What is the stratigraphic position and setting of the South zone? 2) What is the geological relationship of the South zone to the Main zone? 3) What is the geometry of the South zone? 4) How can the mineralization in the South zone be described in terms of mineralogical and textural facies? 5) What constraints on the processes of ore formation can be demonstrated by utilizing the above studies?

Placer gold deposits are widespread throughout the largely unglaciated Stewart River and southern part of the Dawson map areas. These deposits include the world famous Klondike goldfields, the historic Fortymile and Sixty Mile goldfields, and well known placers along Black Hills, Scroggie, Thistle and Kirkman creeks. Although the deposits have been mined for over 100 years and have produced an estimate 311 tonnes of gold, they still account for about 85% of Yukon's annual placer gold production. The placer deposits are classified into three levels of gravel with four main units: high-level gravel, which usually forms prominent, continuous high-level terraces and is subdivided into the White Channel Gravel (which is locally subdivided into a lower White Gravel and an upper Yellow Gravel unit) and Klondike Gravel; intermediate-level gravel, which mostly forms relatively small, irregularly distributed intermediate to low-level terraces; and low-level gravel, which represents alluvium along present day creeks, gulches and rivers. The White Channel Gravel, is up to 46 m thick and characterized by a predominance of quartz clasts (which are generally more abundant in the White Gravel than in the Yellow Gravel). It is considered Early Pliocene to earliest Late Pliocene in age (~5 to 3 Ma). The Klondike Gravel, not considered an economical placer, is up to 53 m thick and is distinguished by chert clasts derived from the Ogilvie Mountains, located northeast of the map areas. It was deposited as glaciofluvial outwash during the end of the initial and most widespread of the pre-Reid glaciations, and is probably latest Early Pliocene to earliest Late Pliocene (~3 Ma). The intermediate-level gravel, the least important economically, is up to 9 m thick. The low-level gravel, historically the most important gold-bearing unit, is 5 m thick in creeks and up to 20 m thick in rivers. The intermediate-level and low-level gravel have similar amounts of quartz, igneous and metamorphic rock particles, although locally, the low-level gravel contains sedimentary rock particles. The intermediate-level gravel is thought to be Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene (~3 Ma to 750 Ka) in age and the low-level gravel is considered Late Pleistocene to Holocene in age. Practically all of the placers are fluvial in origin and were deposited primarily in braided streams that flowed parallel to the present day streams along which the deposits occur. Gold recovered from the various levels of gravel is detrital in origin and was mainly derived from early Mesozoic auriferous quartz veins. The concentration of gold in the gravel is related to a hierarchy of physical scales: at the lithofacies scale (metres), bed roughness determined sites of gold deposition; at the element scale (tens of metres), gravel bars were preferentially enriched in gold; at the reach scale (hundreds of metres), stream gradient was an important factor; at the system scale (hundreds of kilometres), braided river environments transported large amounts of gold; and at the sequence scale (thousands of kilometres), economic placers formed initially in the high-level White Channel Gravel and later in the intermediate- and low-level gravel.

The Skukum area is located 58 km south-southwest of Whitehorse. It is an elliptical area of volcanic rocks, Tertiary in age, and surrounded by hypabyssal rhyolite intrusives. Field and petrographic evidence, fluorite and tourmaline stockwork, breccia pipes, roof pendants, miarolitic cavities and spherulites in the nine Skukum rhyolites suggest that they were emplaced at a high level. The intrusives vary in composition from rhyolite to dacite. The variation in texture within and between the intrusives can be explained by different rates of crystallization, temperature differences and compositional variability. Chemical data are in accord with the expected trends in a cogenetic suite of igneous rocks. Relatively low CaO and MgO, high SiO2 and anomalously low Sr concentrations indicate that the rhyolites were formed from a highly differentiated magma. Sr and Ba versus Al2O3 plots show that both k-feldspar and plagioclase were important fractionating phases. Rare earth element data further support this conclusion and also suggest that some accessory phase(s), such as monazite, allanite or fluorite help control the rare earth element behaviour. Partial melting of an already depleted source rock with residual plagioclase can also explain the patterns. The Bennett Lake ring and associated dykes are petrographically and chemically similar to the Skukum intrusives. However, Zr and TiO2 are present in higher concentrations in the Bennett Lake complex, indicating that they were derived by a slightly different fractionation process.

Sphalerite and tetrahedrite occur with arsenopyrite and minor chalcopyrite and galena in a tabular, fault-bounded body which cuts granitic rocks of the Cassiar batholith. Diamond drilling between 1986 and 1988 outlined a deposit 1100 m long and 50-100 m wide containing geological reserves of 12.3 million tonnes grading 6.17% Zn and 26 g/t Ag. These reserves are amenable to open pit mining and the deposit is open to depth.

The upper Sixtymile River area is located approximately 128 km west of Dawson City, Yukon. Lithology in this area consists of Precambrian to Paleozoic metamorphic rocks, Paleozoic ultramafic rocks, Middle Jurassic pegmatitic and aplitic dikes, Upper Cretaceous porphyritic dikes and volcanic rocks with intercalated sedimentary rocks, Quaternary alkaline basaltic dikes and Quaternary alluvial sediments. Precious metal occurrences in these volcanic rocks are divided into two types, based on differences in local distribution, petrology and wall rock alteration: a gold-bearing pyrite-arsenopyrite type and a silver-bearing galena-sphalerite type. Both types are characterized by four stages of mineralization.

The NTS 106B/04 map area straddles the upper reaches of the Stewart River in east-central Yukon. The area north of the Stewart River is underlain by Ediacaran clastic and carbonate continental slope deposits of the uppermost Windermere Supergroup, and by Ediacaran-Cambrian rocks of the Hyland Group (Selwyn basin). The area south of the Stewart River is dominated by the Cambrian Gull Lake Formation and Cambrian (-Silurian?) volcanic rocks of the Old Cabin Formation. The main structures in 106B/04 define an arcuate pattern; they are oriented NW-SE in most of the area, but are approximately E-W in the westernmost part of the map area. These structures include upright, gently-plunging folds and steeply-dipping, axial-planar cleavage. Folding was locally accompanied by thrusting. Late structures include a steeply-dipping sinistral fault that transects the central part of the map area and a number of NW-WNW-striking normal (± dextral) faults. Stratigraphic relationships suggest correlation of the upper Yusezyu, Algae, and Narchilla formations of the Hyland Group (Selwyn basin) with the upper Blueflower, Risky, and Ingta formations of the Windermere Supergroup (Ogilvie and Mackenzie platforms). Gold mineralization has recently been discovered in the Algae Formation, which has also been explored for Mississippi Valley-type lead-zinc-silver mineralization elsewhere in the area.

The study area provides a clear record of the Proterozoic geological evolution of northern and central Yukon Territory. The area lies in the Wernecke Mountains of east-central Yukon, approximately 150 km north-northeast of the town of Mayo, and 20 km west of the Yukon-Northwest Territories border. The rocks record events of sedimentation, magmatism and deformation ranging in age from Early Proterozoic to Tertiary. Rocks of Early Proterozoic age predominate, but strata of Middle Proterozoic, Late Proterozoic, and Early Paleozoic ages are also abundant.

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The McMillan deposit contains 1.1 million tonnes grading 8.3% Zn, 4.1% Pb and 62 g/t Ag in a manto-like replacement deposit in the Proterozoic/Lower Cambrian Hyland Group at the sheared contact between carbonate rocks and underlying shale. A smaller deposit to the south contains a further 0.4 million tonnes grading 9.3% Pb, 1.7% Zn and 214 g/t Ag. These deposits appear to lie in the footwall of a southward-dipping thrust fault which extends eastward toward the Hyland Gold property.

A placer mining and exploration compilation of parts of the Watson Lake and Whitehorse mining districts, southern Yukon Territory, Canada. This compilation includes the location, history and previous work, description of bedrock geology, surficial geology and mineralization, as well as lists of related references. Accompanying this report are four 1:250,000-scale maps (Watson Lake, 105A; Whitehorse, 105D; Teslin, 105C; and Wolf Lake, 105B) which display the locations of the placer occurrences discussed in the report.