Placer mining on the Reed Creek property in the 1980's produced coarse, angular nuggets with adhering gangue material which resembles quartz-carbonate alteration outcropping on the canyon wall. The gangue is predominantly a white mixture of quartz, calcite and clay, but at least one of the nuggets is associated with distinctive black calcareous and graphitic material containing quartz veinlets. Similar black alteration has been exposed on the wall of the lower canyon at the location of an old adit. Shear zones with demonstrable oblique slip movement cut a thick sequence of low grade metavolcanic rocks at several locations in the canyon and raise the possibility that a significant shear-zone hosted gold deposit could exist in the area.
