Ddhaw Ghro Special Management Area (SMA) is currently withdrawn from mineral claim disposition. A mineral resource assessment of Ddhaw Ghro SMA will be carried out during the fall, 2001, in support of finalizing its management plan. Mapping at 1:20 000 scale, sampling, and prospecting in southeastern Ddhaw Ghro SMA shows complex structural and stratigraphic relations in layered rocks, which are further complicated by intense contact metamorphic alteration around McArthur Batholith. Rocks in roof pendants in the McArthur Batholith are pervasively altered. Southeast of the batholith, a structurally imbricated sequence of Ordovician (Duo Lake Formation) through Devonian (Portrait Lake Formation) rocks contain a slice of maroon and green shale, which may represent a far travelled thrust sheet of Early Cambrian Narchilla Formation, or a facies change in upper Road River Group towards Nogold Unit type lithologies. Sulphide minerals are common in strongly oxidized areas in the contact metamorphic aureole, and in more localized skarn-altered zones.
