The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
First assays show expansion of near-surface gold and silver North of 60 Mining News – August 7, 2020
Benchmark Metals expanded all four zones in the central portion of the Lawyers trend during the 2019 drill program on this gold-silver project in northern British Columbia.
Benchmark Metals Inc. Aug. 6 reported that drilling has tapped a wide section of gold-silver mineralization that includes a parallel zone outside the known resource area of the Cliff Creek zone on the company's Lawyers project in northern British Columbia.
Situated about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northwest of the world-class Kemess gold-copper porphyry deposit, Lawyers is home to a small underground mine that produced 171,200 ounces of gold and 3.6 million oz of silver over a four-year period beginning in 1989.
This historical mining, carried out by Cheni Gold Mines, included production from the Cliffs Creek, Phoenix and AGB zones.
The deposits were never fully mined, or the surrounding area thoroughly explored, and Benchmark has identified additional high-grade and bulk tonnage gold-silver targets within the central area of Lawyers trend, a more than 20-kilometer- (12.4 miles) long prospective corridor that runs across the property.
Benchmark sees the potential of building a 5-million-oz gold-equivalent resource in the four zones targeted and plans to complete 50,000 meters of drilling this year towards reaching this goal.
The first result reported from this campaign was drilled at Cliffs Creek, a 1,200-meter-long bulk tonnage target that is believed to host up to 1.4 million oz of gold and 44.4 million oz of silver in mineralization averaging around 1.3 grams per metric ton gold and 40 g/t silver, according to modelling.
Hole 20CCRC003 cut 57.9 meters of 1.9 g/t gold and 91.96 g/t silver from surface, including 33.53 meters of 3.17 g/t gold and 152.28 g/t silver.
Benchmark says this hole tapped a previously unknown splay of near-surface gold and silver mineralization.
"This drill hole was targeting a zone of limited historical drilling east of the Cliff Creek main zone and outside of the modeled mineralization," said Benchmark Metals CEO John Williamson. "This significant result of both high-grade and bulk-tonnage mineralization is very encouraging as it will provide additional tonnage, better strip ratio and improved gold and silver grades for the Cliff Creek resource potential. Benchmark is rapidly advancing the project with near-term drill results and milestone events in the context of record gold prices."
With five drills turning, the company has already completed 20,000 meters of drilling in 117 holes and plans to continue its work well into winter.
This drilling at Cliff Creek zone, Dukes Ridge, Phoenix, and AGB zones is focused on expanding and defining new mineral resources.
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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