The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Returns to award-winning Saddle South; eyes bigger potential
With the Saddle camp in the background, crews drill TTD089 east of the high-grade Saddle South gold discovery on GT Gold's Tatogga property in northern British Columbia.
GT Gold Vice President of Exploration Charles Greig.
Long sections of high-grade gold and silver at the Saddle South discovery on GT Gold Corp.'s Tatogga property at the northern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle catapulted this newly formed exploration company into the spotlight in 2017.
With intercepts such as seven meters of 51.53 g/t gold and 117.38 g/t silver; 12.2 meters of 14.75 g/t gold; 3.4 meters of 48.85 g/t gold; 8.3 meters of 20.02 g/t gold; and three meters averaging 31.79 g/t gold and 1,141 g/t silver, it is no wonder that this maiden drill campaign attracted the interest of geologists and investors.
The impressive find earned GT Gold the prestigious Mines and Money "Exploration Discovery Award" for 2018.
This award recognized Saddle South as one of the few genuinely new precious metals discoveries to emerge in recent years. Finding such a high-grade and potentially large gold deposit less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from Highway 37 highlights the minerals exploration potential of northern British Columbia, as well as neighboring Alaska and the Canadian territories.
"The Saddle discovery is a very exciting and prospective gold property situated within the expansive Tatogga property located in the Golden Triangle in Northern B.C.," said GT Gold President and CEO Steve Burleton.
Saddle South, however, may not be the largest or most important deposit that the 442-square-kilometer (171 square miles) Tatogga property has to offer.
Saddle North, a parallel trend revealed by geophysics completed last year, may host a porphyry deposit that served as the "engine" of the entire Saddle mineralizing system.
Expanding the discovery
The 16,000-meter discovery drill program carried out at Tatogga in 2017 primarily focused on the Saddle South discovery.
This drilling traced the high-grade gold-silver mineralization over a 500- by 150-meter area and to a depth of about 500 meters.
At the end of the 2017 season, this discovery remained open in several directions, particularly to the east and to depth, expansion targets the company is testing this year.
Early results from the 2018 program have expanded Saddle South both along strike and to depth.
Hole TTD077, drilled about 400 meters east of Saddle South, cut 4.15 meters averaging 6.7 g/t gold.
Hole TTD076, drilled to the west of the discovery zone, cut 6.47 meters of 9.47 g/t gold, including a 1.54-meter section averaging 33.4 g/t gold.
Testing the depth of the deposit, TTD069 cut high-grade mineralization 650 meters below surface in what appears to be a new sub-parallel mineralized trend roughly 175 meters south and east of the main area of 2017 Saddle South drilling.
From a drill depth of 673.35 meters, TTD069 cut 40.02 meters averaging 4.67 g/t gold, including 2.82 meters of 32.65 g/t gold.
"We are very pleased with the early success of the drill program at Saddle South this season. All holes have hit mineralization as we step out to the east and west, and our deep drilling encountered high grades and strong widths along a new and well-mineralized trend not far south and east of the area drilled in 2017," said Burleton.
Seeking the porphyry
Saddle North, a copper-gold-silver porphyry system intersected with drilling completed just before winter weather forced the end of the 2017 season, is a target GT Gold is excited to further explore this year.
"As per plan, we are now also underway with follow-up drilling to last year's intriguing results at Saddle North, where our first two reconnaissance holes showed significant potential for a sizable copper-gold-silver porphyry system, perhaps like that of the Red Chris mine, which is only 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) southeast of Saddle," said Burleton.
Reconnaissance hole TTD062 tapped this porphyry-style mineralization beneath thick glacial cover toward the eastern end of the Saddle North trend. The 210.53-meter intercept from bedrock surface to the bottom of hole 62 ran 0.14 g/t gold, 0.28 g/t silver, and 0.16 percent copper. These grades strengthened at depth, with the bottom 33.73 meters averaging 0.22 g/t gold, 0.36 g/t silver and 0.24 percent copper.
Hole TTD064, drilled about 1,000 meters west of hole 62, cut 18.4 meters of similar mineralization that averaged 1.35 g/t gold, 1.42 g/t silver and 0.37 percent copper, including 7.4 meters of 2.28 g/t gold, 2.03 g/t silver and 0.56 percent copper.
An induced polarization ground geophysical survey completed this year has confirmed that the nearer-surface geophysical signatures outlined in a shallow survey completed in 2017 extend to depths of at least 500 meters and are continuous along trend. An initial 3,000- to 5,000-meter drill program slated for Saddle North will test several targets at the porphyry discovery, including deepening TTD062.
"We look forward to further demonstrating the true potential of the Saddle discovery area – both North and South," Burleton added.
GT Gold's golden triangle
In addition to drilling, GT Gold crews are investigating Quash-Pass, a prospect area about seven kilometers (4.3 miles) southwest of the Saddle targets.
Originally considered primarily a copper prospect, follow-up prospecting and sampling carried out by GT Gold in 2017 found strong precious metals there, including grab samples that returned grades as high as 14.6 g/t gold, 9,995 g/t silver and 4.15 percent copper.
Overall, the company has outlined a 6,000-meter-long trend of elevated gold and silver, along with Saddle South pathfinder elements such as zinc, copper, and bismuth in soils at Quash-Pass. Along with these geochemical characteristics, this prospect area has geological and geophysical similarities to Saddle South.
While the Saddle targets are GT Gold's main priority this year, the company also conducted ground geophysical work, mapping, soil sampling and prospecting at the promising Quash-Pass target.
Saddle South, Saddle North and Quash-Pass provide GT Gold with its own golden triangle of targets on the Tatogga property.
Fortifying its camp to hold up to winter conditions, GT Gold plans to continue exploring this trio of targets until mid-November.
Editor's Note: An update including results from drilling at Saddle North can be found in Drills show Saddle North porphyry upside published in the Oct. 12 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
GT Gold Corp. - TSX.V: GTT
Exec Chairman: Ashwath Mehra
President and CEO: Steve Burleton
VP, Exploration: Charles Greig
36 King Street East, Ste. 400, Toronto, ON M5C 3B2
Tel: 1-647-256-6754
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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