The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – June 15, 2018
Driller pulls a core barrel during underground drilling at the historic high-grade Snip gold mine in northwestern British Columbia.
Skeena crewmembers enter the 440 Portal at Snip, a mine where Barrick Gold produced 1.1 million ounces of gold during the 1990s.
Skeena Resources Ltd. June 14 reported results from an additional 11 holes drilled during the second phase of the company's underground drill program at the historic Snip gold mine in the Golden Triangle region of northwestern British Columbia.
Operated by Barrick in the 1990s, the Snip Mine produced 1.1 million ounces of gold from 1.25 million metric tons of ore averaging 27.5 grams per metric ton gold.
Skeena, which optioned the project from Barrick, completed 7,180 meters of surface drilling in 2016 and 8,650 meters of drilling in 62 holes during a phase-1 underground program carried out last year.
Building upon the data gathered from this initial phase of underground drilling, this year's 11,000-meter phase-2 program is designed to further delineate known mineralization in areas with low drill density, and to expand newly modelled zones via widely spaced exploratory step-out drill holes.
Hole UG18-081, which tested the recently modelled 200 Footwall Corridor, cut 8.6 meters of 5.87 grams per metric ton gold.
Geologically and structurally similar to Twin, a parallel zone about 200 meters shallower that produced 709,601 oz gold from ore averaging 28.95 g/t gold, the 200 Footwall zone has been the target of limited underground drilling by previous operators.
One historic hole that was drilled in this area about 100 meters west of UG18-081 cut 4.4 meters of 26.67 g/t gold.
Skeena said the new intersections extend 200 Footwall 100 meters to the east and this area is open for expansion due to the lack of drilling there.
In addition to testing 200 Footwall, delineation drilling of the Eastern Twin Zone and 412 Veining corridors continues to upgrade geological and grade confidence of the historical database in preparation for a maiden resource estimate at Snip.
One such hole drilling at 412 Corridor, UG18-080, cut 2 meters averaging 36.65 g/t gold. This same hole cut additional 412 Corridor mineralization averaging 95 g/t Au over 0.5 meters and Eastern Twin Zone mineralization averaging 7.87 g/t gold over 3.3 meters, including 45.6 g/t gold over 0.5 meters.
This is the second round of drill results from the 2018 drill program at Snip. The initial results, which included expansion drilling at Twin and infill drilling at 412, where reported by Skeena in mid-May.
–SHANE LASLEY
Reader Comments(0)