SURFICIAL DEPOSITS IN THE LOUIS CREEK AND CHU CHUA CREEK AREA
Surficial geological mapping and drift exploration studies were undertaken in the summer of 1997 north of Kamloops in NTS map sheets 92Pil (Louis Creek) and 92P18 (Chu Chua Creek), as a continuation of the Eagle Bay Project initiated in the previous year (Bohrowsky et al., 1997; Dixon-Warren er al., 1997). The surticial component is pat of an integrated regional study centred on Devono-Mississippian rocks of the Eagle Bay Assemblage and Permian to Devonian rocks of the Fennell Formation. Massive sulphide deposits hosted in stratiform volcanogenic assemblages of the Fennell Formation at Chu Chua (MINFILE 092P 140) and syngenetic sedimentary rocks of the Eagle Bay Assemblage at Mount Armour (MINFILE 092P 051) suggest the region has considerable mineral potential. Polymetallic gold-bearing veins hosted in volcanic and volcanogenic rocks of the Fennel Formation at Windpass (MINFILE 092P 039) also suggest a high potential for gold in the area. Several placer occurrences of Au have also been recorded in the region.
TILL GEOCHEMISTRY: A VIABLE TOOL FOR POLYMETALLIC MINERAL EXPLORATION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA'S SOUTHERN INTERIOR
The bedrock geology in the Kootenay, Slide Mountain and Quesnel terranes has high potential for new discoveries of polymetallic mineral deposits, but typically, such targets are mantled by unconsolidated sediments of varying complexity and thickness. In such an area, drift prospecting techniques must be used by relying on the recognition of subtle geochemical anomalies which are related to clastic dispersal of mineral grains and the provenance of the sampled media. The intent of the regional till geochemical surveys (Bobrowsky et al. 1997a; Bobrowsky et al. 1998; Paulen et al. 2000a, 2000b) that were conducted in the southern interior was to identify areas of potential mineralization. This regional dataset can also be used to outline the shape, extent and bedrock source of geochemical dispersal trains. The regional till geochemistry survey has led to several new MINFILE occurrances, such as the Rock Island Lake anomaly (MINFILE 092P185) in the eastern Bonaparte Plateau and the Cam-Gloria showing (MINFILE 082M266) in the Adams Plateau.
Keewatin Ice Sheet—Re-evaluation of the traditional concept of the Laurentide Ice Sheet
Patterns of dispersal of distinctive Proterozoic and Paleozoic erratics across terrain formed on Archean and Aphebian crystalline rocks indicate that (1) ice never flowed from Hudson Bay into Keewatin in the region from the Manitoba border (lat 60°N) northward at least to lat 65°N; (2) westward-southwestward flow out of the bay, probably from a Labradorean dispersal center, interfaced with southward- and southeastward-flowing ice from the Keewatin dispersal center somewhere between Nelson River and Churchill; and (3) at least 300 km of dispersal of distinctive erratics observed from the vicinity of the last position of the Keewatin Ice Divide to the present coast of Hudson Bay required considerably more time than the 1,000 to 3,000 yr that the divide has traditionally been thought to have existed. In fact, the Keewatin Ice Divide and its precursors represent the centers of an independent, land-based ice sheet that probably existed throughout the period of Wisconsin Glaciation.