Conclusion and Recommendation

The Ram soil grid is centred on an exciting exposure of pyrite bearing felsic subvolcanic rocks that is shattered, strongly and pervasively fractured and silicified. Gold, copper, molybdenum and zinc values returned from the grid are modest to low and show no relationship to each other or to the known showing. The soil geochemistry does not reflect the felsite occurrence; sodium and aluminum might be expected to be higher where the felsite is known, but this is not the case.

Despite the lack of metal values in the rocks or soils the Ram occurrence is intriguing. Few felsite plugs are known in the Nicola volcanics in this region and the fractured, silicified and pyritic nature makes them especially interesting. The Rusty Ant, Atis and Fireguard showings occur close to the Ram, and are east and north one or two kilometres. They are similar in having disseminated to massive pyrite in felsite or in Nicola volcanic rocks adjacent to or above felsite.

Surprising is the high tin result from two samples and the corresponding yttrium (and titanium) response from the same samples. Tin is uniformly below detection limit in soil samples from the project area and this is the only known high tin geochemical response in this large region.

Soil geochemical sampling is planned for the Rusty Ant, Atis and Fireguard showings and until the results of that work are in hand no further work is recommended on the Ram showing.