The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Strategic Metals chases gold, silver, critical metals for cash flow North of 60 Mining News – April 7, 2023
Strategic Metals has discovered strong gold mineralization above Granite Creek, a stream in Yukon's Keno Hill district that continues to produce placer gold eroding off Mount Hinton.
Strategic Metals has built a portfolio of 96 projects in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and British Columbia.
Strategic Metals Ltd., surely the most active project generator in northern Canada, recently reported substantial mineral exploration and transaction activities in 2022 and early 2023.
This includes an update in January on exploration at Mount Hinton, a gold-silver project in Yukon's Keno Hill District that lies immediately southeast of Hecla Mining Company's Keno Hill Silver Mine, 35 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of Victoria Gold's Eagle Mine, and 25 kilometers (16 miles) east-southeast of Banyan Gold Corp.'s AurMac deposit.
Since 2020, exploration at Mount Hinton has centered on discovering new gold- and silver-rich veins, strengthening geological and deposit models relating to many known veins on the property, and generating additional targets for future drill programs.
Strategic said prospecting and follow-up of soil geochemical anomalies in 2021 resulted in several new vein discoveries in the Southwest Zone and Northern Structural Corridor. Geological mapping done in conjunction with this prospecting also resulted in new structural interpretations concerning the distribution of mineralization in new and previously known zones. Strategic said 2022 exploration at Mount Hinton included rock sampling, geological mapping, soil sampling, and reverse circulation drilling.
Highlights from this work include:
• Float samples collected from the 85 Vein discovery returning grades as high as 273 grams per metric ton gold with 284 g/t silver.
• Outcrop samples from the 15 Vein with up to 126.5 g/t gold, with 79.1 g/t silver.
• Float samples from the 19 Vein with up to 101 g/t gold with 182 g/t silver; and chip samples collected from this vein with up to 16.4 g/t gold with 202 g/t silver over 1.7 meters.
• Significant expansion of the area of highly anomalous soil geochemistry.
Recent prospecting at Mount Hinton also discovered the 83 Vein, a 20-centimeter-wide quartz vein that returned 30.4 g/t gold and 230 g/t silver over 0.2 meter from chip sampling. The vein can be traced for 10 meters before being obscured by talus and remains open in all directions. Although narrow at its outcropping location, this discovery is significant because the outcropping vein is hosted within phyllite and, throughout the Mount Hinton and Keno Hill areas, veins typically become broader and better mineralized where they pass from phyllite into more competent quartzite units.
Strategic Metal said geological mapping completed along the Southwest Main Vein has resulted in an enhanced understanding of its geometry and style of mineralization. The Southwest Main Vein is a discontinuously exposed quartz vein, up to seven meters wide, that has been traced along strike for over 1,000 meters.
Surface sampling has returned significant values along the SW Main Vein, including:
• Chip samples with 200 g/t gold with 90 g/t silver over 1.2 meters, and 80.3 g/t gold with 72 g/t silver over one meter.
• Rock samples with 48.5 g/t gold with 73 g/t silver, and 46.9 g/t gold with 466 g/t silver.
• A 100-meter segment of the Southwest Main Vein was tested by five diamond drill holes in 2020, including one hole that cut 12.14 meters averaging 4.78 g/t gold.
The Mount Hinton project is wholly owned by Strategic with no underlying royalties.
Strategic also has 23 royalty interests, eight projects under option to other companies, and a portfolio of more than 90 wholly owned projects, almost all of which are in the Yukon, that are the product of more than 50 years of focused exploration and research by a team with a track record of major discoveries.
In January, this Yukon-focused project generator optioned the Alotta property in January to Benjamin Hill Mining Corp., under which Benjamin can acquire a 60% interest in this copper-gold-molybdenum project in the Whitehorse Mining District.
The Alotta project hosts an undrilled porphyry prospect that is situated in a similar geological setting and next to Western Copper and Gold's Casino deposit. Alotta is marked by a pronounced magnetic low that coincides with a strong, multi-element soil geochemical anomaly. The core of the geochemical anomaly is enriched in copper, gold, and molybdenum and measures four by one kilometers (2.5 miles by 0.62 miles). It is surrounded by a distal halo with high lead, zinc, and silver values.
The Alotta soil geochemical signature exhibits classical features commonly associated with large porphyry deposits. The property is permitted for advanced exploration and only requires an induced polarization survey prior to drill testing.
In mid-January, Strategic Metals also sold 11 critical metals properties to 1137708 B.C. Ltd. ("133 BC") in a transaction equal to 19.9% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the buyer when it completes a listing on a Canadian stock exchange, along with some royalty interests, and closes a concurrent C$1.7 million equity financing. Ten of the properties are in the Yukon, and one is in Northwest Territories.
"This agreement brings Strategic closer to fulfilling its long-term vision – the creation of an investment vehicle owning extensive and valuable shareholdings and royalty interests that generate consistent cash flow," said Doug Eaton, Strategic Metals president and CEO. "Our goal is to unlock the value of our large mineral property portfolio by placing projects with strong, independently managed companies. When this transaction is completed Strategic will own 23 net smelter return royalties and more than 10% share interests in seven companies."
The 11 properties subject to the agreement are Batt, Oli, Bix, Rye, Sayyea, Hidden, Obvious, Boot, Bolt, Four Corners, and Van. Each property is prospective for one or more critical metals, including copper, zinc, tin, tungsten, cobalt, nickel, and vanadium.
Strategic said it had about C$3.6 million and large shareholdings in several active mineral exploration companies, including 32.8% of Broden Mining Ltd., as well as substantial stakes in several other companies.
Broden Mining, notably, is working with First Nation's Ross River Dena Council to complete the acquisition of a large land package known as the Vangorda Lands in the Faro mining district in southern Yukon, which hosts several deposits containing zinc, lead, silver, and other metals.
Broden has said the Vangorda Lands near the former producing Faro Mine exhibits excellent exploration potential in an area of substantial mineral potential.
The Faro Mine was once the largest open-pit lead-zinc mine in the world. Today, it is the site of one of the most complex abandoned mine remediation projects in Canada. The mine spans 25 square kilometers, or the size of the city of Victoria, B.C.
Opened by the Cyprus Anvil Mining Corp. in 1969, the Faro Mine produced ore until 1982 and once was the largest open pit mine in the world, producing 320 million metric tons of waste rock throughout its operation.
The Yukon-focused project generator also owns a 29.6% stake in Rockhaven Resources Ltd., which is advancing the Klaza gold-silver project toward prefeasibility.
A 2020 preliminary economic assessment for Klaza outlines plans for a mine that would produce roughly 750,000 oz of gold and 13.8 million oz of silver over 12 years of mining.
This scoping level study is based on 4.46 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 4.8 g/t (686,000 oz) gold and 98 g/t (14.1 million oz) silver; plus 5.71 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 2.8 g/t (507,000 oz) gold and 76 g/t (13.9 million oz) silver outlined at the Klaza project so far.
Since this resource was calculated in 2018, Rockhaven has completed significant drilling at Klaza, including a 14,256-meter drill program completed during 2021 that included 11 holes to test resource expansion targets, 30 to evaluate targets outside of the immediate resource area, and 31 focused on upgrading inferred resource.
Beyond the projects it has generated, Strategic owns 15 million shares and 5 million warrants of Terra CO2 Technologies Holdings Inc., a private company that recently completed a large financing to advance its environment-friendly, cost-effective product marketed as an alternative to Portland cement.
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