The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drills begin to outline high-grade gold zone on Ranch project North of 60 Mining News – September 29, 2023
Initial assay results show that high-grade gold mineralization extends below historical mining at the BV zone on Thesis Gold's Ranch property in Northern BC.
Click on image for larger BV-Ring zone map.
Thesis Gold Inc. Sept. 28 reported strong gold mineralization was cut in the first three holes drilled this year below the historically mined BV pit on the company's Ranch project in the Toodoggone mining district of Northern British Columbia.
According to a historical estimate calculated in 1988, the BV zone contained 65,640 metric tons of resource averaging 9.81 grams per metric ton gold, at a cut-off grade of 3.5 g/t. Roughly 40,000 metric tons were mined from BV in 1991 to supplement ore being processed at Cheni Gold Mines Inc. mining operation on the adjacent Lawyers property.
Earlier this year, Thesis completed a merger with Benchmark Metals Inc. that consolidates the Ranch and Lawyers into a single district-scale gold project.
The most advanced of the projects in the merged portfolio is Lawyers, a 144-square-kilometer (56 square miles) land package contributed by Benchmark that hosts 67.38 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.26 grams per metric ton (2.74 million ounces) gold and 24.39 g/t (52.9 million oz) silver; plus 4.87 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 2.39 g/t (378,000 oz) gold and 39.41 g/t (6.2 million oz) silver.
A 2022 preliminary economic assessment based on this resource envisions ore from open-pit mines at three Lawyers deposits – AGB, Cliff Creek, and Dukes Ridge – feeding a centrally located mill that would produce 1.7 million oz of gold and 26.7 million oz of silver over an initial 12 years of mining.
This year, Thesis is carrying out a 50,000-meter drill program – 30,000 meters at Ranch and 20,000 meters at Lawyers – focused on advancing a larger project that includes mining on both properties.
The drilling at Ranch includes a 10-hole program at BV to test the continuity and expansion potential of mineralization both along strike and below the historical pit.
Highlights from the first three holes drilled at BV include:
• 6.3 meters averaging 14.87 g/t gold from a depth of 27.4 meters in hole 23BVDD001.
• 4.2 meters averaging 3.09 g/t gold from a depth of 27.1 meters in hole 23BVDD002.
• 10.8 meters averaging 2.32 g/t gold from a depth of 37.7 meters in hole 23BVDD003.
"The high-grade, near-surface results from the BV zone align seamlessly with our corporate strategy at Ranch," said Thesis Gold President and CEO Ewan Webster. "Our primary focus is to complete our 30,000-metre program, aimed at establishing a maiden resource and emphasizing high-grade zones with potential for early mining."
Mapping and sampling by Thesis geologists have confirmed the presence of a large zone of alteration south of the BV pit, where samples of andesite (an igneous rock) returned up to 29.6 g/t gold. The best sample from this southern zone, returning 32.8 g/t gold, was collected from a massive barite vein.
Alteration and gold pathfinder mineralization at the Ring zone, which lies about 650 meters southeast of BV, suggests further expansion potential in this area of the Ranch project.
"Similar to other mineralized zones within Ranch, our ongoing exploration efforts around the BV Zone strongly suggest its integration into a much larger mineralized trend, potentially exceeding a 1km strike length," said Webster. "These results provide a robust foundation for this emerging trend, reaffirming our confidence in the Ranch Projects capacity to significantly contribute to our overarching strategy of building a unified Toodoggone district. This strategy leverages the combined potential of our assets to their fullest extent."
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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