Major metal trends at Newmont Lake

Crystal Lake Mining Corp. reported that drills have tapped a new porphyry copper-gold zone at Newmont Lake; and surface sampling has discovered an entirely new hydrothermal system containing high-grade gold , silver, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and lead mineralization along a separate corridor on the northern British Columbia property.

The porphyry copper-gold mineralization, announced on Oct. 9, was encountered by drilling at 72' Zone, which is about 2,300 meters northeast of the Burgundy Ridge mineralization at Newmont Lake.

Crystal Lake drilled four holes across a 700- by 300-meter area at 72' Zone. The third hole – STDDH19-006 – cut 56.4 meters of porphyry mineralization averaging 0.45 percent copper, 0.33 grams per metric ton gold and 3.44 g/t silver. This intercept included a 22.3-meter zone of intense potassic alteration and high-grade hypogene mineralization averaging 0.89 percent copper, 0.71 g/t gold and 6.65 g/t silver.

The company said this could be evidence of a large underlying porphyry system that is responsible for generating the high-grade skarn mineralization observed at surface along the Burgundy trend.

"This obviously represents an exciting and major development over the Burgundy trend," said HEG & Associates Exploration Services President and CEO Cole Evans.

The porphyry mineralization tapped at 72' Zone is about 1,500 meters northeast of Rock Island, where surface sampling recently identified porphyry mineralization in outcrop, and about 2,300 meters northeast of Burgundy Ridge, where this year's drilling cut 44.1 meters averaging 4.03 g/t gold, 4.06 g/t silver and 0.29 percent copper.

"We feel this is one of a series of mineralization centers that have never been drilled within the Burgundy system and might be the heat and fluid source behind high-grade copper-gold-silver-zinc mineralization on surface along the entire 2.3-kilometer trend," Evans said of 72' Zone.

In addition to the porphyry copper-gold discovery, on Oct. 10, Crystal Lake announced the discovery of high-grade gold, silver, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and lead mineralization over an 8,000- by 4,000-meter area known as the Chachi corridor.

At least three different styles of mineralization have been identified over this expansive area east of the Burgundy trend. Outcrop grab and chip samples have returned grades as high as 21.03 g/t gold, 2,350 g/t silver, 5.4 percent copper, 7.7 percent nickel, 0.85 percent cobalt, 15.2 percent zinc and 6.2 percent lead.

A recently completed induced polarization (IP) ground geophysics survey detected a chargeable conductive anomaly in the footwall of the McLymont Fault. Over 2,000 soil samples, 2,000 hyperspectral measurements, and 800 rock samples were collected from this area.

Crystal Lake said these results highlight a newly discovered gold-silver-copper occurrence, named the Leo zone, associated with quartz veins within the footprint of a 600-meter-long IP anomaly. Multiple samples yielded grades of 5.82 to 21.03 g/t gold along with high-grade silver and copper.

Roughly 4,500 meters to the southwest, exploration of the Cuba showings identified high-grade silver-zinc-copper-lead sulfide mineralization associated with barite along the 3,200-meter-long Cuba-Thumper trend. Rock samples from this area returned grades of five to 2,350 g/t silver, 15.2 percent zinc and up to 5.4 percent copper.

This summer's exploration also discovered nickel-cobalt-copper-gold-silver mineralization at the Brass Rose and Grey Rose occurrences, which are about 850 meters north and 1,000 meters east of the Leo zone, respectively.

One sample collected from Brass Rose contained 7.7 percent nickel, 0.85 percent cobalt, 0.17 percent copper and 10.9 g/t silver. A sample from Grey Rose, which is 1,500 meters to the southwest, contained 3.2 percent nickel, 0.57 percent cobalt, 1.3 g/t gold and 1.5 g/t silver.

"(T)he discovery of high-grade nickel, copper, cobalt, zinc and lead was unexpected and remarkable," said Crystal Lake Mining President and CEO Maurizio Napoli. "The 2019 program of work supports exploration for high grade gold-copper mineralization along the Chachi corridor. The presence of high-grade VMS- (volcanogenic massive sulfide) style and nickel-cobalt-copper arsenide mineral occurrences highlights the potential for the discovery of base metal deposits along this richly endowed metal corridor."

Crystal Lake said these findings at Chachi will underpin an aggressive exploration effort in this expansive and metal-rich corridor. The company plans to carry out additional geophysical surveys in the area, including electromagnetics and expanded IP coverage, to locate conductive mineralization and refine targets for drilling.

"The Chachi corridor is still in its infancy of exploration, but the large 2019 program of work has identified important new mineral occurrences as well as geochemical and geophysical signatures indicative of a major mineralizing event," said Evans. "HEG, as a services company, has been fortunate to work on many good properties across the Golden Triangle in British Columbia, but Chachi is different from anything we have ever seen before."

–SHANE LASLEY