Initial Evaluation of Bedrock Geology and Economic Mineralization Potential of Southern Whitesail Lake Map Area (NTS

The east ern Bella Coola (NTS 093D) and south ern Whitesail Lake (NTS 093E) 1:250 000 map ar eas com prise a re gion of rug ged moun tain ous to pog ra phy and lim ited ac cess on the east ern mar gin of the Coast Moun tains. These map ar eas strad dle the tran si tion zone be tween the Coast and Intermontane morphogeological belts, and en com pass the bound ary be tween ig ne ous and meta mor phic rocks of the Coast Plutonic Com plex on the west and Ju ras sic and Cre ta ceous vol ca nic-sed i men tary suc ces sions of south west ern Stikinia on the east (Fig. 1, 2). Bed rock geo log i cal map ping and eco nomic min eral as sess ment in the east ern Bella Coola (NTS 093D) map area have been the pri mary fo cus of the 2001–2004 Bella Coola Tar geted Geoscience Ini tia tive (TGI), a co or di nated fed eral-pro vin cial pro ject de signed to im prove un der stand ing of the geo log i cal evo lu tion for this part of the cen tral coast re gion and as sess the eco nomic po ten tial of lit tle-known Me so zoic vol ca nic as sem blages in the re gion (Haggart et al., 2004, and ref er ences therein). Dur ing the 2004 field sea son, the geo log i cal frame work es tab lished by the Bella Coola TGI was ex tended to the north, into the south ern Whitesail Lake map area (NTS 093E/02, 03), un der the aus pices of the Rocks To Riches Pro gram, by a com bined re search team from the Uni ver sity of Wis con sin – Eau Claire, the Uni ver sity of Brit ish Co lum bia and the Geo log i cal Sur vey of Canada.