Bugaboo Castles, Golden Mining Division, British Columbia, Canadai

Regional Level Types
Bugaboo Castles	Deposit (Active)
Golden Mining Division	Division
British Columbia	Province
Canada	Country

The Bugaboo Castles Property is located in British Columbia’s Southeast Mining Region and comprises 2 individual claims totalling 307 hectares. The property is within NTS Map Sheet 082K10, adjacent to the Bugaboo Glacier Park and approximately 50 km W from Radium Hot Springs and 65 km S from the town of Golden. The margins of the property are nearly accessible by truck but the property is predominantly helicopter access only.
The property is underlain mainly by the Cretaceous aged Bugaboo Batholith, which intrudes variably deformed and metamorphosed metasedimentary turbiditic rocks of the Neoproterozoic Horsethief Creek Group. Gemstone mineralization is found primarily in interstitial segregations, quartz veins, aplites and pegmatites related to the Bugaboo Batholith. The intrusion itself has been lightly studied, however, the surrounding aureole has been the target of several academic investigations. Aquamarine and schorl tourmaline have been the focus of the exploration work, and these occurrences do not seem to have been formally reported in past investigations. Metasomatic garnet clots and bands hosted in limy sediments were also discovered.
Mineralization at the Bugaboo Castles property is predominantly vein and pegmatite hosted, and it is assumed that they are directly related to the Bugaboo Batholith. The broader area is dominated by rocks of the Horsethief Creek Group, which was subsequently intruded by the Cretaceous Bugaboo Batholith. The east part of the intrusion is reported to be medium-grained leuco-quartz monzonite to coarse-grained biotite-muscovite granite. Minfile 082KNE006 describes a range of placer minerals (e.g., uraninite, allanite, rutile, titano-columbite, euxenite-polycrase, pyrochlore, monazite, uranothorite magnetite, ilmenite, apatite, andalusite, zircon, epidote, fluorite, garnet, hematite, pyrite, lepidocrocite, and sphene), supporting the notion that this intrusion has yielded complex mineral assemblages consistent with a geochemically evolved system. Brandon (1992), Brandon and Lambert (1993) and Brandon and Smith (1994) studied a number of intrusions in the area, providing evidence that the Bugaboo Batholith is an S-type granite. The prominent spires and excellent exposure in the area has made it an excellent study site for intrusion related metamorphism in metapelitic rocks (e.g., Pattison and DeBuhl 2015, Petley-Ragan 2015, Petley-Ragan et al 2016). Petley-Ragan (2015) provides an excellent overview of the geological setting. While the work has an emphasis on the metamorphic processes, they describe the batholith as follows:
The Bugaboo batholith is a steeply dipping composite granitic intrusion that covers approximately 130 km2. The batholith is comprised of hornblende-biotite granodiorite to the west and biotite granite the east. The biotite granite is porphyritic with phenocrysts of potassium feldspar and a matrix of 5 vol. % biotite, 25 vol. % quartz and 35 vol. % each of potassium feldspar and plagioclase. Altered plagioclase encloses randomly oriented secondary muscovite crystals while biotite is being replaced by both muscovite and chlorite. The hornblende-biotite granodiorite is aphanitic to phaneritic with approximately 5 vol. % hornblende, 10 vol. % biotite, 15 vol. % potassium feldspar, 20 vol. % quartz and 50 vol. % plagioclase. The Fry Creek, Horsethief Creek and White Creek batholiths consist of biotite granite that is similar to what is found in the Bugaboo batholith.
The presence of veins, pegmatite and aplite has been briefly noted in previous reports, but no systematic documentation has been recorded and in the public domain. An opportunity exists to establish tight controls on pegmatite emplacement conditions (e.g., P-T-t-x) based on the other petrological work conducted. In addition, carbonate bearing stratigraphy of the Horsethief Creek formation provides a setting for euhedral garnet growth.

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