The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Oli, Bix adds to company's strong critical minerals portfolio North of 60 Mining News – August 13, 2021
A geologist investigates Strategic Metals' Bix tin project in Yukon's prolific Tombstone-McQuesten mineral belt.
Strategic Metals Ltd. Aug. 6 announced significant tin mineralization in samples collected at its Oli and Bix critical mineral projects in the prolific Tombstone-McQuesten mineral belt of central Yukon.
Hardrock deposits in the Tombstone-McQuesten belt include Alexco Resource Corp.'s Keno Hill silver-lead-zinc mines; Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle gold mine and Mar tungsten deposit; Banyan Gold Corp.'s AurMac gold deposit; and Golden Predator Mining Corp.'s Brewery Creek gold mine.
Strategic says many of the creeks within the belt have yielded significant placer gold production and one has been mined for tin and gold.
The hardrock tin mineralization in the belt typically occurs as cassiterite hosted in veins, breccia zones, and skarns.
Located on the south side of the McQuesten River and accessible via bulldozer trail to roads servicing nearby placer operations, the Oli project hosts a tin-enriched skarn target. The area of interest at Oli lies on a vegetated, north-facing slope that is mostly blanketed by glacial overburden. Bedrock exposures are limited to creek cuts and old bulldozer trenches dating to exploration done in the 1970s and 1980s.
The critical minerals target at Oli was first identified by a stream sediment pan concentrate sample that assayed 7.4% tin and 1.9% wolframite (tungsten mineral). Follow-up prospecting and soil sampling outlined targets that were partially tested by trenching and 12 diamond drill holes. Several of the holes contained well-mineralized, skarn and vein intervals, with the best intervals grading 1% tin over six meters, 0.31% tin over 10.4 meters, and 15% tin over 0.80 meters.
Strategic says its own soil sampling and prospecting has confirmed earlier results and shows that the tin usually occurs with elevated silver and zinc. Copper, cobalt, and gold values are locally elevated in some trenches but are not closely correlated with tin, suggesting that two or more phases of mineralization may be present.
Samples collected by Strategic from bedrock exposed in trenches returned promising results for several metals including values as high as 0.33% tin, four grams per metric ton gold, 921 g/t silver, 0.51% cobalt, 0.34% molybdenum, 0.45% lead, 0.43% zinc, greater than 1% copper, and 100 parts per million wolframite. Historical drill core was not analyzed for many of these metals.
Due to the north facing slope, soil sampling is somewhat hampered by frozen ground and glacial overburden, but Strategic says it has proven to be a useful technique to outline general areas of interest.
Situated on the north side of McQuesten River and east of the Clear Creek placer gold district, the Bix project hosts two historical tin-enriched breccia zones. These zones – A and B – were locally tested by five diamond drill holes in 1979. The best result was a 7.62-meter intercept in a hole at Zone A averaging 0.28% tin.
The historical area of interest at Bix was restaked in 2020, and Strategic purchased it and staked additional claims this spring. Soil sampling and prospecting, done in 2020 and 2021, have identified a new target that lies south of the historical breccia zones.
This target is marked by a prominent soil anomaly containing high tin, tungsten, and copper values. Rock sampling done across the property has returned many values grading greater than 200 ppm tin, including a sample collected on the western side of the main soil anomaly, which assayed 14.9% tin.
"Strategic Metals is pleased to have added these tin prospects to our strong portfolio of critical metal projects, which includes another high-grade tin project; several very prospective tungsten occurrences; large, drill-confirmed vanadium prospects; and promising cobalt and nickel targets," said Strategic Metals President and CEO Doug Eaton. "The critical metals in many of these projects are hosted in settings that are conducive to large deposits and they are often accompanied by precious and base metals, making them very attractive opportunities in a broad-based, bull market for metals."
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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