The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drilling, geophysics shows structural trend linking targets North of 60 Mining News - June 14, 2022
A drill tests the Quartz Rise target on Seabridge's Iskut gold-copper project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
The best grades at Bronson Slope trend toward a magnetotelluric geophysical below the copper-gold deposit, which is the target of 2022 drilling.
Seabridge Gold Inc. June 13 reported that it is preparing to launch a drill program to test the Bronson Slope and Quartz Rise gold-copper targets along a recently recognized trend of mineralization on the company's Iskut property in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
"We have identified a regional trend that seems to be a primary control on the distribution of mineralized intrusive centers and this discovery has created considerable excitement in our team," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk.
Over the previous two years, Seabridge undertook drilling and magnetotelluric (MT) geophysical surveys across a large part of the Iskut property. Regional geophysical surveys of the property show a distinct structural feature that connects Bronson Slope, Quartz Rise, and Snip North. All the prospective intrusions fall along this regional trend, and each surveyed intrusion on this trend has a coherent resistivity anomaly at depth that is similar to what is found at the company's world-class KSM gold-copper mine project about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the east.
"We acquired the large land package at Iskut because of its many characteristics similar to our giant KSM project," Fronk added. "Our understanding of Iskut has expanded enormously since last fall when important data and observations coalesced into a more complete picture of mineralization on the property."
So far, 187 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.36 grams per metric ton gold and 0.12% copper has been outlined by a previous explorer at the Bronson Slope target, and drilling at Quartz Rise has encountered gold-copper grades below a clear lithocap.
Lithocaps are layers of alteration typically formed above a deeper porphyry system, which is the larger gold-copper deposit Seabridge is seeking at Iskut.
This year's roughly 8,000-meter drill program will begin at Bronson Slope target, where a quartz-chalcopyrite-magnetite resource was deposited as a skarn on the border of the complex and into the adjacent wall rock. MT geophysical surveys have identified a clearly defined zone of resistive rocks within the intrusive complex that could be the source of this mineralization.
Seabridge says very little drilling has tested the intrusions below the Bronson Slope resource, but the best grades in the deposit trend toward this MT anomaly to be tested.
In addition to Bronson Slope, the company plans to complete drilling at Quartz Rise later this summer. A total of six to eight holes are planned at the two targets.
Crews are currently carrying out geophysical surveying, surface sampling, and relogging of core from historical drilling at the Snip North target along the emerging trend at Iskut.
"We have lots of experience with a cluster of gold-copper porphyries in the Golden Triangle of similar age and geology at KSM and we are anxious to bring another such district to light," said Fronk.
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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