Report on the Detailed Mineral Assessment of the Proposed Pickhandle Lakes Special Management Area, Yukon

The proposed Pickhandle Lakes Special Management Area (SMA) consists of 50.2 square kilometers in southwest Yukon on NTS map sheet 115F/16. The Yukon and Canadian Governments and Kluane and White River First Nations agreed to create a SMA, to be designated as a Habitat Protection Area, which covers Pickhandle Lake and the surrounding wetlands. The Habit Protection Area designation does not require the withdrawal of the area from mineral staking and withdrawal has not been requested in the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Governments of Canada, Yukon and the First Nations. The purpose of this report is to present the results of the detailed mineral assessment of an approximately 281.7 km2 area that encompassed the proposed Special Management Area. This enlarged area was included to provide some relative context for the assessment. The proposed SMA area has no known mineral occurrences and fieldwork conducted during 2002 did not identify any mineral resources. As the proposed SMA is a wetland in the overburden covered Shakwak Trench no rock exposures were found within the SMA in 2002 and conventional soil and stream sediment sampling were determined to be ineffective. The detailed mineral assessment is based on the mineral potential of the geology as identified by a panel of industry experts. The resulting detailed mineral potential map indicates that the belt of Wrangellia Terrane rocks, on the southwest side of proposed SMA, have the highest relative mineral potential. Due to insufficient information the detailed assessment panel did not establish any applicable potential mineral deposit models for the proposed SMA area. This resulted in the tract containing the proposed SMA having the lowest relative mineral potential. The assessment panel determined that the Wrangellia Terrane has potential for hosting gabbroic nickel - copper, volcanic massive sulfide volcanogenic type, gold-quartz vein and copper skarn deposits. The Nasina Assemblage rocks on the north east side of the SMA were considered to have potential for hosting gabbroic nickel - copper, volcanic massive sulfide Besshi/Cyprus and gold-quartz vein deposits. Field work in 2002 located outcrops with anomalous gold, arsenic and antimony values in quartz veins in the tract bounding the northeast side of the proposed SMA. No further evaluation work is recommended for the proposed SMA area at this time. It is recommended that land use planners take into account the relatively high mineral potential of the area surrounding the proposed SMA.