Hunter Continental
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Silver Valley Type

Hunter Continental is hosted in the same formations as other major mineral systems in Idaho's Silver Valley (Revett and Burke Formations).

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Strike Length

The Hunter Continental vein system is over 3,000 feet long on the surface.

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Depth Potential

Silver Valley Types are known to continue at depth for over 1 mile

Hunter Continental is a Silver Valley Type exploration project located in the Pine Creek district of Idaho’s Silver Valley. The property package consists of 22 unpatented federal mining claims which cover a strike length of over 3,000 feet of historically described silver-lead mineralization. The mineral system is hosted within the Revett and Burke quartzite formations, the same units that host the majority of the silver-lead mineralization throughout the entirety of the Coeur d’Alene mining district (i.e. Bunker Hill, Sunshine, Galena, Hercules, Morning-Star, and Page mines). 

There is very little data on this property and the Company has not recovered any geochemical samples of interest on the property yet. We are very excited about this project, however, due to the following factors: 1) Historic data suggests there is high grade mineralization at depth on the property that was found through tunnelling, 2) the project is hosted in the Burke and Revett Formations, the same units that host the vast majority of significant Silver Valley ore bodies, and finally, 3) the structure which hosts the mineralization strikes directly at the Douglas Mine, indicating that it likely had access to the same fluids that formed other Pine Creek mines. 

Basically, the Pine Creek District of the Silver Valley experienced a significant flow of metal rich hydrothermal fluids, comparable to that experienced by other districts within the Silver Valley. The majority of these mineralizing fluids were expended creating fissure veins in the Prichard Formation, which is not a particularly good host because of its rheology (softness). The Company believes that Hunter Continental has significant potential because it is located at the ideal junction between the preferred host rocks, the Burke and Revett Formations (brittle quartzites), and a fault which carried Pine Creek metal rich hydrothermal fluids. 

The major source of historic assay data, a report by Don Gillis described below, may be questionable because we do not have his source material and he was not independent. Despite this, the Company believes this property has sufficient geologic merit to explore with geophysical methods, and depending on results, diamond drilling. 

The Pine Creek District, located south of the Osburn Fault and on the far western end of the Silver Valley is known as the zinc rich portion of the area. There are seven mines in the district that produced greater than 100,000 tons of ore, with the Sydney being the largest with 1,071,000 tons (Table 3) 

Table 3: Pine Creek Production Data

                               | Tons Ore  | Silver Ounces | Lead Pounds | Zinc Pounds | Copper Pounds | Gold Ounces
| Sidney                   | 1,071,000 | 1,931,000         | 88,003,000     | 171,152,000   | 512,000              | 1,800
| Constitution          | 667,000   | 1,275,000          | 38,964,000     | 90,261,000     | 335,000              | 2,200
| Highland Surprise | 519,000    | 371,000            | 22,256,000     | 62,219,000     | 403,000              | 1,200
| Little Pittsburg       | 321,000   | 283,000            | 13,409,000     | 33,027,000     | 140,000              | 800
| Liberal King           | 256,000   | 167,000             | 12,399,000     | 25,230,000     | 230,000              | 1,000
| Douglas                 | 167,000   | 305,000             | 7,460,000       | 21,265,000     | 72,000               | 300
| Nabob                   | 134,000   | 186,000             | 8,916,000       | 14,353,000    | 76,000                 | 300
| Hypotheek             | 89,000     | 50,000               | 8,125,000       | 7,000             | 62,000                | 600
| Denver Vein           | 13,000     | 47,000               | 2,210,000       | 3,094,000      | --                         | --
| Amy Matchless      | 4,600       | 2,400                 | 210,000         | 22,000            | 2,500                   | --
| Hilarity                   | 3,300       | 1,500                 | 102,000         | 128,000         | 1,000                   | --
| Lookout Mountain | 1,600      | 2'900                 | 446,000          | 400               | 3,600                   | --
| Bobby Anderson    | 500         | 900                   | 64,000            | 30,000           | 1,500                   | --
 
| Total                       | 3,247,000 | 4,314,800        | 202,564,000   | 420,788,400   | 1,838,600            | 8,200

The Pine Creek district is located on the western end of the Silver Valley, south of the Osburn Fault. The district is typified by zinc rich mineralization hosted within the Prichard Formation, the basal unit of the Belt Basin (the Precambrian sedimentary rock package that makes up the bedrock of North Idaho, Northeastern Washington, and Northwestern Montana). Generally, the Prichard is not considered to be an ideal host to Silver-Valley type mineralization because it is too soft. The leading deposition models for this type of mineral system suggest that major ore bodies form when brittle rocks fracture under stress, opening void space that mineral rich fluids can then push into and precipitate metal. The Prichard formation in in the Pine Creek district does host a variety of mid-sized historic producers, including the Liberal King, Hypotheek, and most notably, Constitution, mines, but they were not on the same scale as the larger Revett and Burke hosted ore bodies like the Bunker Hill and Sunshine. 

Hunter Continental is hosted within a wedge of Burke and Revett formations to the west of the Constitution mine, with the structure defined by a linear array of historic workings that strike N72W, whose eastward projection intersects the Douglas Mine. The company has not yet identified the quartz veins described in the historic literature, but there is a breccia and gouge filled fault exposed where the main tunnel is collapsed near the bottom of the Hunter Creek canyon. This is inferred to be the host of one of the three veins described in the historic literature available on the property. 

In 1923 it was reported that there was one 40-foot-deep shaft and 3 tunnels on the vein, all located where the vein crosses Hunter Creek. The shaft was sunk on the apex of the vein where it crossed the ridge between Hunter and Trapper Creeks. Two of the tunnels were driven eastward, into the mountain separating Hunter Creek from Trapper Creek, and the third was driven on the west side of Hunter Creek, driven westward along the vein in the mountain between Hunter Creek and the west fork of Pine Creek. 

The Company has thus far been unable to locate any sulfide mineralization at the surface and does not have any rock chip samples from the vein. We have located the historic workings; all of which are collapsed. 

Many significant orebodies in the Silver Valley did not have significant mineralization outcropping at the surface (e.g. Lucky Friday, Sunshine, Hercules, Tamarack). Pine Creek is particularly notorious for having ore bodies with no surface expression, and none of the major producers had significant outcrop. This is the target concept for Hunter Continental, and we intend to explore it using modern methods. Because the project has been described primarily as a blind discovery in the historic literature, and the company’s results thus far are the same, we intend to employ geophysical methods primarily to identify potential drill targets. If limited mineralization outcrops at the surface, surface based geochemical exploration methods are not likely to successfully identify an orebody. 

During the summer of 2024 the Company plans to survey the project with a ground-based magnetometer and that data is going to be sent off for a 3D inversion. A large sulfide orebody at depth should register with this survey and provide a drill target. 

The Company’s exploration model for this project is that a potentially significant Silver Valley Type system exists in the Pine Creek District and is distinct from the other known ore systems within that district because it is hosted within the preferable Burke and Revett quartzites, rather than the softer Prichard argillite. Historic assays as described elsewhere in this document indicate that the mineralization at this property is similar to others hosted in the Revett and Burke; rich in silver and lead rather than zinc. 

 Scroll through the gallery for a virtual visit of Hunter Continental. Click on any image to open it larger. 

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Collapsed portal along Hunter Creek
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View from ridgeline looking north into the Silver Valley
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Forest covering project
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Ridgeline between Hunter and Trapper creeks