The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
In footwall of most prolific zone at historic Northern BC mine North of 60 Mining News – May 21, 2021
Workers enter the 440 Portal from Barrick's 1990s mining at the high-grade Snip gold mine in BC's Golden Triangle.
Skeena Resources Ltd. May 20 reported high-grade gold intercepts from its 2021 phase-3 infill and exploration drill program at Snip, home to a historic high-grade underground mine in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Operated by Barrick in the 1990s, the historic Snip Mine produced 1.1 million ounces of gold from 1.25 million metric tons of ore averaging 27.5 grams per metric ton gold.
Twin, the most prolific of the high-grade zones mined by Barrick, produced 709,601 oz of gold from ore that averaged 28.95 g/t gold.
Skeena entered into option agreements to acquire Snip and Eskay Creek, home to another past producing Golden Triangle mine, from Barrick in 2017.
According to a calculation completed for Skeena last year, Snip hosts 539,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 14 g/t (244,000 oz) gold; and 942,000 metric tons of inferred resources averaging 13.3 g/t (402,000 oz) gold.
A 5,366-meter surface drill program completed late last year, and after the resource calculation, cut high-grade gold mineralization in the footwall sediments below Twin zone.
One of the 2020 holes, S20-049, cut a previously unidentified 4.03-meter zone averaging 29.52 g/t gold. Another zone about 20 meters further down the same hole cut 2.86 meters averaging 37.78 g/t gold. Skeena says these intercepts occur in an area devoid of previous drilling and are open for expansion. The hole S20-049 also cut 5.6 meters averaging 45.76 g/t gold in the main Twin Zone mineralization.
The new batch of assay results from phase-3 drilling at Snip continued to cut high-grade gold in the footwall sediments below the Twin Zone.
The best such intercept came in hole S21-076, which cut 3.22 meters averaging 155.76 g/t gold.
Other highlights from phase-3 holes that tapped this zone include 0.5 meters averaging 140.5 g/t gold in hole S21-078 and three meters averaging 8.4 g/t gold in S21-080.
Skeena says the S21-080 intercept is 100 meters northwest S21-076 and correlates spatially with the modeled resources.
The 2021 drilling program at Snip is designed to upgrade inferred resources to the higher confidence measured and indicated categories. Toward this goal, roughly 3,100 meters of surface-based drilling and 8,000 meters of underground drilling remain to be completed this year.
Skeena is currently operating two underground rigs at Snip and additional surface rigs will be added once permits are received.
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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