The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Cardiac Creek zinc deposit is a model for exploring district North of 60 Mining News – February 26, 2021
Utilizing an extensive database from four decades of exploration, ZincX Resources identified 19 high-priority exploration targets across its Kechika regional zinc properties, which cover a 140-kilometer- (87 miles) long stretch of the Kechika Trough in northern British Columbia.
ZincX Resources Corp. Feb. 24 reports that a district-wide evaluation of its Kechika regional zinc properties has identified 19 high-priority targets across this expansive land package that covers a 140-kilometer- (87 miles) long stretch of the Kechika Trough in northern British Columbia.
The Kechika regional project encompasses 11 properties that stretch northwest from Akie – (from south to north) Pie, Cirque East, Yuen, Yuen North, Mt. Alcock, Kwad, Weiss, Bear-Spa, Driftpile South, Saint, and Thro.
A joint venture between Teck Resources Ltd. and Korea Zinc Co. owns a 51% interest in three of these properties – Pie, Cirque East, and Yuen. ZincX owns the remaining interest in these properties and full ownership of the other eight.
Akie, the most advanced of the properties fully owned by ZincX, 22.7 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 8.32% (4.16 billion pounds) zinc, 1.61% (804 million lb) lead and 14.1 grams per metric ton (10.3 million ounces) silver; and 7.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 7.04% (1.17 billion lb) zinc; 1.24% (205 million lb) lead and 12 g/t (2.9 million oz) silver.
A 2018 preliminary economic assessment for the Cardiac Creek deposit on Akie envisions a 4,000-metric ton underground mine providing ore for a 3,000-metric-ton-per-day mill that is expected to produce 3.27 billion lb of zinc and 362 million lb of lead over an initial 18-year mine life.
ZincX originally planned to carry out 2,000 meters of drilling at Cardiac Creek last year to provide new drill core for state-of-the-art metallurgical testing by Tongling, one of the largest smelting companies in China.
Due to concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, however, ZincX opted to defer 2020 field work at Akie. Instead, the company carried out a district scale evaluation of the Gunsteel formation that hosts zinc-lead deposits across its Kechika properties.
"While we continue to focus on maximizing value from our primary asset, the Cardiac Creek deposit located on the Akie property, we are also looking to unlock the blue-sky potential of our Kechika regional project," said ZincX Resources CEO Peeyush Varshney. "This targeting initiative is forward momentum to achieve that goal."
This targeting initiative utilized a 155-gigabyte database representing more than C$7.3 million of exploration carried out across the Kechika Trough to help identify underexplored regions, new areas of interest, and near-term drill targets across the company's properties. The database represents a comprehensive effort to compile and integrate over 40 years of exploration data derived from BC Assessment Reports, BC property files, and modern exploration carried out by ZincX, which includes high-resolution airborne geophysical surveys, mapping, and sampling.
This work resulted in the identification of 19 high-priority targets from a pool of 95 areas of interests across all its Kechika Trough properties
Several target areas are classified as drill-ready while others require additional work in order to be upgraded. In some cases, these high-priority targets are associated with adjacent or proximal AOIs that, pending exploration success, could elevate their ranking.
One of the highest priority targets is the Mt. Alcock prospect, which is located roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the Akie property and 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) northwest of Cirque.
Discovered in the late 1970s, Mt. Alcock is defined by a prominent massive barite cap that hosts abundant coarse-grained galena (lead mineralization) and sphalerite (zinc mineralization) on surface.
Limited and extremely shallow drilling by previous operators intersected mineralization with grades as high as 9.3% combined zinc-lead and 37.3 g/t silver in Gunsteel formation shale. ZincX says models show that close examination of the Cardiac Creek deposit can be applied to the Mt. Alcock prospect and greatly assist in vectoring future targeted drilling at depth and down-dip of prospective rocks identified at surface.
This work has shown that the tenor and style of mineralization at Cardiac Creek is a close analog and serves as an exploration model going forward. ZincX says mineralization encountered, geochemical data and geophysical electromagnetic trends across the district all support this exploration model.
The company says other high-priority targets have been identified on the Saint and Thro properties.
Targets on the Saint property are associated with a roughly 3,500-by-500-meter continuous lead-in-soil. Historical operators recommended drilling for this target area, but it was never pursued.
On the Thro property, historical work outlined an approximate 600-by-600-meter lead anomaly. Rock chip samples collected from the same area returned grades as high as 5,600 parts per million lead.
ZincX says nearly all the known deposits in the Kechika district are associated with a distinct lead soil signature making the large anomalies identified at Saint and Thro attractive drill targets.
The company plans to further refine the high-priority targets and areas of interests it identified with its targeting initiative, as well as discover new target areas as it expands its exploration database.
"Targets identified in this latest generative process are an important iterative step and we look forward to assessing them in the field in upcoming exploration programs," said Varshney.
This year, however, the company plans to carry out the 2,000 meters of metallurgical drilling that it planned to do before the COVID-19 pandemic.
"2020 was an unprecedented and challenging year for the junior mining sector but we look forward to the exploration activity this summer," Varshney said earlier this year. "We continue to dialogue with Tongling and expect to successfully execute on our planned drill program."
Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings, a large ZincX Resources shareholder, is funding the 2021 drilling at Akie.
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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