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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Will focus on building maiden gold resource north of Lawyers North of 60 Mining News – June 30, 2023
Thesis Gold Inc. June 27 announced that it is gearing up for a roughly 30,000-meter drill program at Ranch, a gold exploration property immediately north of Benchmark Metals Inc.'s Lawyers gold-silver project in Northern British Columbia.
In early June, Thesis and Benchmark announced plans for a merger that would consolidate Ranch and Lawyers into a single 324-square-kilometer (125 square miles) gold-rich land package in the Toodoggone region of Northern BC.
Each company is launching large-scale drill programs as they work toward the anticipated near-term completion of the merger.
"Between the two companies we will complete a fully funded 50,000-meter drill program this season that will help define for the first time a global resource, encompassing both projects," said Thesis Gold President and CEO Ewan Webster.
For its part, Thesis is carrying out 30,000 meters of resource delineation and exploration drilling at Ranch.
The resource drilling will target the Thesis Structural Corridor (TSC) and Bonanza-Ridge zone, where mineralization remains open at depth and along strike.
Highlights from 2022 drilling at TSC include:
• 50.3 meters averaging 1.86 grams per metric ton gold in 22BNGDD009, the northernmost hole drilled at TSC.
• 59 meters averaging 1.6 g/t gold in hole 22THDD004, which was drilled at the southern end of TSC.
• 95.7 meters averaging 1.6 g/t gold in 22TH3DD015, one of the deepest holes drilled last year.
Highlights from 2022 drilling at Bonanza-Ridge include:
• Seven meters averaging 11.69 g/t gold in hole 22RDGDD0047, drilled at the southern-most extent of the Ridge zone.
• 91 meters averaging 1.81 g/t gold in hole 22BNZDD008, drilled between the main Bonanza and Ridge zones.
To date, drilling indicates that mineralization TSC stretches extends for 1,500 meters along strike and reaches a depth of at least 400 vertical meters. This zone is represented by a 2,000- by 320-meter magnetic anomaly that transects the Ranch property.
"Building on the success of last year's drill campaign our team has planned an extensive 30,000-meter program that is focused on growing our key zones through targeted expansion drilling as we work towards a maiden resource," said Webster. "Furthermore, we are committed to exploring new target areas by continuing our exploration drilling, aiming to uncover promising new discoveries."
The exploration drilling will primarily focus on Steve, JK, and BV targets just south of TSC and Bonanza-Ridge.
Last year's discovery at the Steve zone returned 119.2 meters averaging 0.97 g/t gold. The same mineralized zone was encountered in a second hole drilled about 220 meters along strike, indicating this target has scale potential.
One hole drilled at the JK prospect in 2021 cut 20.4 meters averaging 5.11 g/t gold.
The BV target area underlies the historical BV Pit, which accounts for a portion of the 10,000 ounces of gold produced by Cheni Gold Mines Inc in 1991. The area has not been drilled since 1997, but historical samples from more than 25 trenches yielded greater than 10 g/t gold, warranting modern drilling.
In addition to drilling, Thesis plans to complete 170 line-kilometers of ground magnetics and collect 1,200 soil samples at the Border and Metsantan zones, which lie approximately 3,500 meters southwest of the Steve zone. This region of the property has been prioritized due to significant mineralization in surface rock grab samples.
Between the two target areas, over 25 historical and modern rock samples have returned greater than 1 g/t gold, including: 2.94 g/t gold and 90.3 g/t silver (Border); 3.47 g/t gold and 53.4 g/t silver (Border); and 69.5 g/t gold and 36.2 g/t silver (Metsantan).
The results of geophysical and geochemical surveys at the Border and Metsantan targets will help guide future exploration, and potential drilling at these zones.
The 2023 fieldwork at Ranch is also slated to include detailed geological mapping to build on regional-scale, deposit-hosting geological context of the large gold-silver property.
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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