Work History
 
Staked within R cl 1-1295 (YC68334) in July 2008 by ATAC Resources Ltd. The claims are part of the larger Rackla Gold Project and were staked following the discovery of gold mineralization in 2008 at the company’s Tiger occurrence (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098). Following staking, the company performed a helicopter-borne magnetic and variable-time domain electromagnetic survey over the newly staked area, including the Spotlight occurrence.
 
In 2017, ATAC Resources carried out prospecting over the Spotlight occurrence. Follow-up soil sampling, prospecting and bedrock mapping was performed in 2018.
 
Regional & Property Geology

The occurrence lies with the Rau Trend between the Dawson and Kathleen Lakes thrusts, which form part of a band of regional-scale thrust faults that imbricate rocks of Mackenzie Platform and Selwyn Basin. The occurrence area lies on the western margin of ancestral North America and is underlain primarily by shallow water carbonate and clastic sediment rocks of the Mid-Proterozoic to Paleozoic Mackenzie Platform and the Neo-Proterozoic to Paleozoic, regionally metamorphosed Selwyn Basin clastic rocks. These rocks formed a fault-bounded sediment package which was thrust northeasterly during Jurassic to Cretaceous times by the Dawson and Kathleen Lakes thrust faults onto predominantly Proterozoic rocks. Following thrust faulting, Late Cretaceous (94-90 million years) intermediate to felsic plutons of the Tombstone Suite were emplaced (Mortensen et al., 2000). A second compressional orogenic event around 65 million years saw the emplacement of felsic intrusives assigned to the McQuesten Suite.
 
Other than the immediate area surrounding the Tiger deposit (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098), the occurrence area has not been geologically mapped in detail. ATAC Resources (AR 096936) has mapped 3 main units in the area comprising the Rau Trend:
1. Cambrian to Ordovician massive, grey dolostone,
2. Ordovician and/or Silurian bedded, grey and buff silty limestone and massive white limestone, and
3. Silurian to Devonian thick, bedded dolostone and limestone.

The company has assigned all three units to the Cambrian to Devonian Bouvette Formation. Colpron’s 2013 geological map generally supports this interpretation; however it uses slightly different age dates and doesn’t include the oldest rocks (Cambrian to Ordovician dolostones) within the Bouvette formation.

Thin volcaniclastic horizons assigned to the Ordovician Marmot Formation are interbedded with the Ordovician and/or Silurian limestones and a narrow sliver of Mid-Proterozoic Fifteen Mile Group dolostone underlies the Bouvette Formation rocks to the southwest. Devonian and Mississippian Earn Group comprised of black shale and chert bounds the Bouvette Formation to the south east and north in the southern half of the Rau Trend property.

Mineralization at the Rau Trend varies and consists mainly of: sediment-hosted replacement-style Au; structurally hosted Ag-Pb-Zn; skarns; Au-bearing quartz veins; and transported gossans/unkown deposit style (AR 096936).

Mineralization & Results

The Spotlight occurrence was discovered in 2017 by ATAC Resources as a 500 m long gold and silver-in-soil anomaly. Prospecting in 2017 returned high grade samples of up to 7,080 g/t Ag and 3.27 g/t Au in rocks containing significant hornfels, marble alteration, and abundant tremolite (ATAC News Release, 16 Jan/2018).

Follow-up work in 2018 consisted of prospecting, mapping and soil sampling. Anomalous gold and silver-in-soil values up to 0.70 g/t Au and 15.20 g/t Ag were returned. Prospecting conducted in the area returned samples of 4,090 g/t Ag and 1,765 g/t Ag in quartz veins within limonite. Further prospecting returned brecciated quartz-siderite material that returned 2.17 g/t Au and 1.38 g/t Au (ATAC News Release, 16 Jan/2018). 

Assessment Reports that overlap occurrence