The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2020 - Published January 19, 2021
Core from drilling into the nickel- and copper-rich E&L intrusion on Garibaldi Resources Nickel Mountain project in Northern British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Visible gold in a sample collected from the Casper vein that averaged 76.9 g/t gold.
Rich in battery metals, precious metals, platinum group elements, and copper, Garibaldi Resources Inc.'s Nickel Mountain project in the heart of British Columbia's Golden Triangle offers a wide range of some of the most important metals of the 21st century.
And the grades of the deposits being outlined on this property about 18 kilometers (11 miles) southwest of the historic Eskay Creek Mine are remarkable.
Garibaldi first tapped the nickel- and copper-rich E&L intrusion at Nickel Mountain in 2017. This discovery hole, EL-17-14, cut 16.75 meters averaging 8.3% nickel, 4.2% copper, 0.19% cobalt, 1.96 grams per metric ton platinum, 4.5 g/t palladium, 1.1 g/t gold and 11.1 g/t silver from a depth of 100.4 meters.
Following up on this Golden Triangle discovery, the Vancouver, B.C.-based explorer continued to drill into exceptionally high grades in what is shaping up to be a widespread deposit with multiple layered zones of nickel- and copper-rich massive sulfide mineralization.
In addition to the two massive sulfide zones at E&L tapped in 2017 – Upper and Lower Discovery – Garibaldi's 2018 program tapped a shallower zone known as Northeast.
One of the 2018 holes, EL-18-33, cut all three zones, including a 48.98-meter interval of Northeast Zone averaging 1.34% nickel, 0.89% copper, 0.04% cobalt, 0.23 g/t platinum, 0.34 g/t palladium, 0.23 g/t gold and 3.7 g/t silver from a depth of 37.88 meters. A 4.77-meter section of this hole averaged 7.69% nickel, 2.95% copper, 0.20% cobalt, 0.68 g/t platinum, 0.78 g/t palladium, 0.42 g/t gold and 7.3 g/t silver from a depth of 77.05 meters.
One hole drilled in 2019, EL-19-53, cut 30.2 meters averaging 4.74% nickel, 3.22% copper, 0.13% cobalt, 1.26 g/t platinum, 2.59 g/t palladium, 0.82 g/t gold and 8.1 g/t silver. This was part of a wider 86.5-meters intercept averaging 1.88% nickel, 1.32% copper, along with cobalt and the precious metals.
Even thicker zones of high-grade mineralization were tapped at Nickel Mountain in 2020.
EL-20-89 cut 151.7 meters averaging 0.56% nickel, 0.61% copper, 0.018% cobalt, 0.25 g/t platinum, 0.5 g/t palladium, 0.26 g/t gold, and 2.78 g/t silver.
Reconnaissance exploration carried out in 2020 provided intriguing clues of wider nickel mineralization on the property.
"Mineralized outcrop approximately 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) northeast of Nickel Mountain have been recently discovered which returned 2.4% nickel and 3.2% copper utilizing a portable XRF," said Garibaldi Resources Vice President of Exploration Jeremy Hanson.
When weather does not allow for access of the E&L zone on Nickel Mountain, Garibaldi geologists are investigating the Casper gold vein discovery at lower elevations at the north end of the property. This work has traced the vein for 120 meters along surface.
Grab samples collected from Casper in 2020 have returned grades as high as 249 g/t gold. Channel samples of the vein have returned grades of 4.06 g/t gold over 78 meters, including 8.71 g/t gold over 23 meters.
"The expanding Casper vein system may represent the surface expression of a much larger system at depth," Hanson said.
In December, Garibaldi drilled four holes to test the grade and width of Casper gold mineralization at depth.
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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