In February 2000, Yukon Government Mineral Resources Branch convened a panel of industry geologists to estimate the likelihood of new discoveries in Cassiar Terrane and eastern Yukon-Tanana Terrane. The estimates were processed in a mineral deposit simulator. The simulated tonnage of metal for each tract (approximately 1000 km² of coherent geology) was converted to a dollar value, which in turn was used to rank the tracts relative to each other, from lowest to highest mineral potential. Separate runs of the simulator for significant deposit models were completed to produce model specific maps.

The past-producing McKay Hill property on NTS map sheet 106D/6 (Nash Creek) has previously been described as polymetallic Ag-Pb-Zn ± Au-style mineralization. During the 2009 YMIP-funded exploration program the central claims on the property were mapped and numerous distinct differences from the proposed polymetallic model became apparent. Unlike Keno Hill, veins on the McKay Hill property lack siderite gangue and are not present as vein-faults. Propylitic alteration halos surrounding vertically zoned ore shoots (high-level Au-Cu and deeper level Ag-Cu-Pb) were observed within consistently north-northwest-striking, near vertical, siliciclastic and hypabyssal-volcanic rocks. The Ag-Pb-Zn veins in the Keno Hill Camp were emplaced in discrete dilational fault structures within polydeformed clastic metasediments and are not associated with extensive alteration. Host rock competency in both areas is vital in controlling mineralization. Re-evaluating the regional framework could potentially illustrate the area’s metallogenic potential for different types of mineral occurrences.

Yukon-Tanana Terrane in the Livingstone Creek area comprises five successions of metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks which range in age from pre-Upper Devonian to Lower Mississippian. They are correlated with Lower Mississippian and older strata in the Glenlyon and Finlayson Lake areas. Yukon-Tanana rocks are intruded by at least five plutonic suites, ranging in age from Late Devonian to Late Cretaceous. The structural style of the area is dominated by a transposition foliation which is axial planar to isoclinal folds of an earlier foliation. The transposition foliation is itself folded by northeast-verging open folds. The d'Abbadie fault zone, a 1-km-wide zone of imbricate fault slices in the eastern part of the area, is characterized by multiple generations of ductile fabrics overprinted by younger cataclastic breccia zones. Deformation along d¿Abbadie fault is in part constrained by syn-tectonic emplacement of a ca. 96 Ma granite pluton along the western margin of the fault zone. Two new showings are reported here: a Pb-Ag vein occurrence and a pyrrhotite skarn. In addition, anomalous Cu-Zn values in graphitic phyllite associated with chloritic schist suggest potential for volcanogenic massive sulphide- (VMS) or hybrid VMS-sedimentary-exhalative-style mineralization in the area.

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Recent mapping in the ‘Windy McKinley’ terrane of Stevenson Ridge area of western Yukon defined two subdivisions of the terrane, an imbricated ophiolite and a succession of predominantly fine-grained, variably carbonaceous and calcareous clastic rocks extensively intruded by Middle Triassic gabbro. Further work in 2007 has revealed a third subdivision of felsic metavolcanic and carbonaceous clastic rocks, also spatially associated with voluminous gabbro. The two subdivisions of the terrane containing gabbro are reminiscent of the two subdivisions of the Delta district of Alaska, and gabbroic rocks from the two areas are coeval and geochemically similar. If the Stevenson Ridge successions correlate with those of the Alaska Range, the mineral potential of the Stevenson Ridge area would be appropriately increased.

This property, which adjoins the Mt. Nansen property on the north side, is bisected by Discovery Creek, a significant placer gold producer. Two parallel zones of anastomosing quartz veins and porphyry dykes cut Cretaceous intrusive rocks and contain variable amounts of gold and silver over substantial widths. The two mineralized zones lie approximately on trend with the Brown-McDade and Webber-Huestis zones on the Mt. Nansen property to the south, and with gold and silver-bering veins on the Tawa property to the north. The mineralized zones are deeply oxidized, and the property appears to have good potential as a bulk tonnage low-grade oxide gold deposit.

This report is a summary of activity by the mineral industry in the Yukon Territory and the southwestern District of Mackenzie during 1969 and 1970, by the Northern Economic Development Branch of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The information was obtained from visits to properties, correspondence with company personnel, technical reports of companies, newspapers and trade journals and from the reports of the Mining Recorders of the Dawson, Mayo, Watson Lake and Whitehorse Mining Districts.

Discovery of the volcanic-associated massive sulphide (VMS) Kudz Ze Kayah (KZK) deposit in 1994, closelyfollowed by the discovery of the Wolverine VMS deposit, resulted in a period of intense exploration activity in Yukon. This led to the discovery of additional VMS mineralization that includes GP4F, Ice and significant new reserves at Fyre Lake. Numerous VMS prospects were identified. The Fyre Lake, KZK, GP4F, Wolverine, and Ice VMS deposits are hosted by the Yukon-Tanana Terrane (YTT) in the Finlayson Lake district of southeastern Yukon. The Fyre Lake deposit (8 200 000 tonnes of 2.1% Cu and 0.73 g/t Au) is stratigraphically lowest and occurs in mafic metavolcanic rocks of the Devonian to Mississippian Grass Lakes succession. The KZK and GP4F deposits (13 000 000 tonnes of 5.5% Zn, 1% Cu, 1.3% Pb, 125 g/t Ag and 1.2 g/t Au and 1 500 000 tonnes of 6.4% Zn, 3.1% Pb, 0.1% Cu, 89.7 g/t Ag and 2.0 g/t Au, respectively) are within the Devonian to Mississippian succession but lie stratigraphically above Fyre Lake in felsic metavolcanic rocks. The Wolverine deposit (6 237 000 tonnes of 12.66% Zn, 1.33% Cu, 1.55% Pb, 370.9 g/t Ag and 1.76 g/t Au) is hosted by Carboniferous rhyolitic metavolcanic rocks and carbonaceous argillite of the Wolverine succession. The Ice deposit (4 561 863 tonnes of 1.48% Cu ) occurs highest in the stratigraphy and is hosted within late Palaeozoic mafic metavolcanic and associated metasedimentary rocks of the Campbell Range succession. The YTT underlies a large part of Yukon, east-central Alaska and parts of British Columbia. VMS mineralization occurs within rocks of the YTT in the Dawson and Glenlyon areas of Yukon, in the Teslin-Rancheria area in Yukon and adjacent British Columbia, and in several areas within Alaska, as well as in the Finlayson Lake area of the Yukon. In the Dawson area, which lays adjacent to the massive-sulphide-rich Finlayson Lake district (before approximately 425 km of right lateral movement on the Tintina Fault), VMS prospects are hosted in Late Devonian to mid-Mississippian Nasina Assemblage and Permian Klondike Schist. In the Glenlyon area, massive sulphide mineralization and chert horizons occur within a belt of rocks that is at least 20 km long. In the Teslin-Rancheria area and adjacent northern British Columbia, several VMS prospects have been identified. The Alaskan VMS occurrences are in the Delta, Bonnifield and Trident Glacier districts. Exploration during this period was not confined to the YTT but extended into rocks of the North American miogeocline that are coeval, and possibly correlative, with Devono-Mississippian strata of the YTT. This led to the discovery of additional resources at the Marg and Wolf VMS deposits. The Marg deposit (5 527 002 tonnes of 1.76% Cu, 2.46% Pb, 4.60% Zn, 62.7 g/t Ag and 1.0 g/t Au) occurs in the Selwyn Basin within a Devonian to Mississippian sequence of carbonaceous siliceous phyllite, quartz-muscovite and quartz-chlorite phyllite and massive quartzite. These strata also host the Jane prospect. The Wolf deposit (4.1 million tonnes of 6.2% Zn, 1.8% Pb and 84 g/t Ag) occurs in the Pelly-Cassiar Platform within the Devono-Mississippian Pelly Mountains volcanic belt and is hosted by felsic metavolcanic and associated metasedimentary rocks. Numerous other VMS prospects, including MM, occur throughout the length of this 80-km-long volcanic belt. The newly defined VMS deposits are comparable in size to the average Canadian VMS deposit indicating the discoveries are significant. Mineralization in the YTT occurs in Late Devonian to Permian strata thus there are several prospective horizons and the potential for additional discoveries is significant.

Detailed exploration conducted during 2006 in the western part of the Skukum Creek deposit has revealed new structural, mineralogical and geochemical features. The deposit incorporates a number of (at least six or seven) sub- parallel narrow mineralized zones, coincident with andesite-dacite-rhyolite dyke swarms extending for at least 1 km along strike and for hundreds of metres down-dip. Various mineralized zones differ in size, structural setting, intensity and composition of mineralization, and, in total, form a large mineralized package more than 200 m wide, corresponding to a property- to district-scale fault zone extending for over 10 km and traced by a dyke belt. Significant potential exists for the exploration of these structures along strike and down-dip. The diamond drilling intersected numerous high-grade intercepts of gold and silver mineralization corresponding to the low-sulphidation sub-type of epithermal gold-silver deposits. However, strong enrichment in base metals (up to 25% of combined Zn+Pb+Cu) and arsenic suggests essential differences from typical epithermal mineralized systems.