#125 Blue Grouse Mine on Vancouver island!

Exploring a large abandoned mine with special guests on Vancouver island called the Blue Grouse!
The Blue Grouse mine is located on the south side of Cowichan Lake, 4.8 kilometres northwest of Honeymoon Bay. Mineralized outcrops on the property were first located between 1900 and 1910. The mine was abandoned in 1960, reportedly leaving some reserves. The workings were rehabilitated in 1979 by Corrie Copper Ltd. Copper mineralization of mineable grade was reported to be present at the 1100 level. The workings were backfilled sometime between 1987 and 1989. The Sunnyside workings (092C 108) are located 800 metres to the south.

The Cowichan Lake area is at the eastern end of the Cowichan uplift, one of a series of major geanticlines on Vancouver Island. The area is underlain by pyroclastic, sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Paleozoic Sicker Group, the Mississippian to Permian Buttle Lake Group, the Upper Triassic Vancouver Group and the Lower Jurassic Bonanza Group which have been intruded by Triassic gabbros (informally named Mount Hall) and Early to Middle Jurassic Island Plutonic Suite rocks, and overlapped by Upper Cretaceous sediments of the Nanaimo Group.

The Vancouver Group comprises pillow and massive basalt, volcaniclastics, tuffs and breccias of the Karmutsen Formation; siltstone, argillite and micrite of the Quatsino Formation and limestone, tuff and argillite of the Parson Bay Formation.

The property is underlain by Karmutsen Formation volcanics and Parson Bay Formation sediments. Sediments of the Nanaimo Group and volcanics of the Bonanza Group occur near the property. These are cut by numerous Jurassic feldspar and feldspar-pyroxene porphyry dykes related to the Bonanza Group.

The orebodies occur in limestone and tuffaceous members which are folded in a series of overturned folds. The beds are displaced by a series of thrust faults which have a general east strike and dips of 10 to 20 degrees south. Garnet-epidote-actinolite skarns are developed in limy tuff, limy sediments and limestone, apparently interbedded with the upper portions of Karmutsen Formation basalts.

Mineralization was present in ten small tabular sulphide zones and consisted of chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, pyrite and lesser magnetite and sphalerite.

The main orebody, hosted in volcanic rocks, was the G-H. The ore consisted of a skarn zone which formed a southwest plunging pipe-like body extending from the surface to the 335 metre level. The mineralization comprised chalcopyrite, pyrite and pyrrhotite irregularly occurring as stringers and small masses. The orebody was displaced to the northeast, the top block moved 305 metres to the north and 46 to 61 metres to the east in relation to the lower block.

The E ore body, 300 metres due south of the G-H, was a 3 to 4 metre wide tuffaceous horizon mineralized with pyrrhotite. The pyrrhotite almost completely replaced the bedded rock and was veined with small stringers and irregular masses of chalcopyrite and pyrite. Small grains of hematite were noted locally.

The mine was in production from 1917 to 1919 and from 1956 to 1960. From 249,298 tonnes of rock, 6,814,623 kilograms of copper, 2,508,644 grams of silver and 218 grams of gold were produced. Exploration in 1989 located several gossanous zones in the southwest portion of the property. A 1-metre chip sample (109075) of intermediate tuff with copper staining from the BGN-4 site assayed 0.7 per cent copper and 0.043 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 19387). Sampling results ranged from 0.0007 to 1.1824 per cent copper and 0.001 to 0.043 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 19387). In 2002, Ber-Can Environmental Resources Inc. completed a program geochemical sampling of the Blue Grouse tailings and tailings ponds for the purpose of developing a proprietary process for the clean up of mine tailings and mill tailings.

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