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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drills tap copper and gold at both ends of new large resource North of 60 Mining News – June 11, 2021
Drills have tapped strong copper and gold mineralization more than 300 meters northeast and along the southwest edge of the open pit mine at Red Chris.
Newcrest Mining Ltd. and Imperial Metals Corp. June 9 reported additional higher-grade mineralization in the newly discovered East Ridge zone at the Red Chris copper-gold mine in Northern British Columbia.
Since Newcrest acquired a 70% interest in Red Chris in the fall of 2019, the joint venture partners have completed more than 136,631 meters of drilling at the project, much of which has tested discovery targets outside of the resource.
According to the new Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant calculation published by Newcrest in March, Red Chris hosts 980 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.41 grams per metric ton (13 million oz) gold and 0.38% (3.7 million metric tons) copper.
This includes the East Ridge discovery made earlier this year about 300 meters east of the East Zone and outside of Newcrest's resource estimate for Red Chris.
"This exciting new discovery at the East Ridge is located outside the envelope of the current mineral resource and has the potential to increase the already large mineral resource at Red Chris," said Imperial Metals President Brian Kynoch.
Newcrest's first hole at East Ridge, RC678, cut 198 meters averaging 0.89 g/t gold and 0.83% copper from a depth of 800 meters, including 76 meters averaging 1.8 g/t gold and 1.5% copper from 908 meters.
The company says the style of mineralization and grade tenor is similar to that seen in the high-grade pods at East Zone, which lies between East Ridge and Main Zone at Red Chris.
In the latest exploration update, Newcrest and Imperial report that hole RC684, drilled 100 meters down-dip of RC678, cut 252 meters averaging 0.46 g/t gold and 0.53% copper from a depth of 814 meters, including 98 meters averaging 0.85 g/t gold and 0.86% copper from 962 meters. This hole demonstrates the continuity of the East Ridge zone over 100 meters vertically.
Hole RC688, drilled 100 meters east of RC678, cut 344 meters averaging 0.70 g/t gold and 0.75% copper from a depth of 776 meters, including 170 meters averaging 1.1 g/t gold and 1.1% copper from 892 meters. This hole demonstrates the continuity of the East Ridge zone over 100 meters horizontally.
Newcrest and Imperial also reported that drilling tapped higher grade mineralization at the end of the Red Chris resource area.
Earlier this year, the partners reported that hole RC679 cut 456 meters averaging 0.37 g/t gold and 0.42% copper from a depth of 418 meters to the southwest of the Main Zone open pit, including 98 meters averaging 0.71 g/t gold and 1.0% copper from 440 meters.
In the June exploration update, the Red Chris partners reported that hole RC683, drilled 100 meters east of RC679, cut 300 meters averaging 0.41 g/t gold and 0.51% copper from 260 meters, including 114 meters averaging 0.67 g/t gold and 0.85% copper from 390 meters.
This hole demonstrates the continuity of the higher-grade mineralization over 100 meters horizontally within the mineral resource area at Red Chris.
"Drill results in the Main Zone have confirmed the potential for higher-grade mineralization, which could support additional mining fronts beneath and to the southwest of the open pit," said Newcrest Mining Managing Director and CEO Sandeep Biswas.
Drilling to define the extent and continuity of this high-grade mineralization is planned.
Roughly 50,000 meters of growth-related drilling is planned for Red Chris during 2021. With the increase to eight drill rigs in April, further drilling to define the extent of copper-gold mineralization at East Ridge is underway. Additional targets along the porphyry corridor and neighboring GJ property have been identified with the potential to conduct drilling to test these targets in the future.
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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