The rocks in the project area are primarily a thick sequence of weakly metamorphosed middle to late Paleozoic peletic rocks with some volcanic interbeds. The dominant rock type at both the Clear Creek and Cherokee mines is a thinly fissile phyllite/slate of the Permian Arlington Formation, which has been thrust over a zone of serpentine ultramafic rocks and mixed intrusive rocks by the regional Grizzly Mountain Thrust Fault. The Grizzly Mtn. Thrust is sympathetic and strikes parallel to the Melones (Mother Lode) Fault about 10 miles west of the project area. The Clear Creek-Cherokee mineralization is a classic example of mesothermal shear zone hosted or “Mother Lode” type mineralization. Two main types of gold mineralization have been noted in the district. The first is quartz veining with veins made up of ribbons of white to blue grey quartz separated by selvages of sericite-chlorite+- carbon with minor pyrite and fine to coarse free gold. This veining often runs more than 0.4 opt Au. The ore shoots of this type of mineralization are typically 2-10 feet wide, up to a few hundred feet along strike and of varying depth down rake. Most of the historic mining targeted this type of mineralization. The second type of mineralization consists of stockworks of quartz veinlets in strongly sericitized and albitite- phyllite or intrusive rock. Pyrite is common both in the quartz veinlets and sericite-albitite rock. This mineralization can be spatially associated with the first type. Arsenic concentrations in both types are typically less than 100 ppm. This type of mineralization can be 50 feet thick, more than a thousand feet along strike and very extensive down dip and typically runs from 0.05- 0.40 opt Au. These zones can be stacked in the thrust fault zone that has an overall thickness of hundreds of feet.   Ribbon quartz veins have produced more than 10 million ounces of gold in the Grass Valley-Nevada City district and sericite-quartz+-albite-pyrite zones have produced plus large gold deposits in many districts in California including Royal Mountain King, Jamestown, Plymouth-Jackson and Carson Hill. All of these districts had production to depths of greater than 3000 feet with consistent grade.   Where the zones of mineralization transect serpentine, the rock has been strongly altered to an ankerite-fuchsite- quartz-pyrite assemblage. This rock typically shows erratic gold concentration along the Goldstripe-Cherokee trend. Ankerite-fuchsite-quartz-pyrite rock constituted ore at many mines on the main Mother Lode especially Carson Hill and the Pine Tree-Josephine.   Like the Mother Lode, mineralization is associated with a major regional reverse fault. Virtually all the gold mineralization in the Goldstripe-Cherokee belt is in the hanging wall or upper plate of the northwest trending shallow to moderately southwest dipping 10 plus mile long Grizzly Mountain Thrust fault. The zones of mineralization generally parallel the regional foliation which parallels the Grizzly Mountain Mtn. thrust. There are also zones of high angle mineralization that cut the regional foliation. Mineralized zones hundreds of feet thick have been developed along the zone.