The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Encouraging gold-copper mineralization drilled at Snip North North of 60 Mining News - December 15, 2023
Five of the holes drilled this year at the Snip North target on the Iskut project cut significant gold-copper mineralization.
Seabridge Gold Inc. Dec. 14 announced that its first-ever drilling at Snip North discovered the upper parts of a new copper-gold porphyry system that may be part of a much larger mineralized trend on the company's Iskut project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Iskut, which is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of Seabridge's world-class KSM mine project, is home to the 1980s-era Johnny Mountain gold-silver-copper mine. Over the past four years, Seabridge has focused its exploration on discovering a buried porphyry intrusive responsible for the high-grade skarn mined at Johnny Mountain and other surfacing mineralization on the property.
Prior to Seabridge's acquisition, 187 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.36 grams per metric ton gold and 0.12% copper have been outlined by a previous explorer at the Bronson Slope target at Johnny Mountain, and Seabridge's drilling has identified the potential for deeper and larger gold-copper porphyry deposits.
This potential was further affirmed last year in hole SGS-22-05, which encountered a quartz-magnetite breccia pipe below the Bronson Slope resource. This hole cut 288.5 meters averaging 0.7 g/t gold, 0.28% copper, and 4.1 g/t silver from a depth of 10.5 meters, including 174.4 meters averaging 0.86 g/t gold, 0.34% copper, and 3 g/t silver from 23.6 meters.
Regional magnetotelluric (MT) geophysical surveys have identified a distinct structural feature that runs from Bronson Slope, through Quartz Rise, and onto Snip North. All the recognized mineral occurrences at Iskut are interpreted as high-level expressions of copper-gold porphyry systems aligned along this regional structural trend, which shows similar characteristics to the cluster of porphyry systems Seabridge has defined at KSM.
This year, Seabridge completed 5,184 meters of drilling in six holes designed to evaluate areas where historical shallow drilling encountered extensive alteration and mineralization coinciding with the structural trend identified by geophysics.
"At Snip North, we have extensive evidence of gold-copper mineralization in historical drilling supported by our deep penetrating geophysical surveys. Furthermore, Snip North lines up with our regional interpretation of mineral deposition at Iskut," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk.
Before the start of 2023 drilling, the company carried out additional geophysics involving an airborne magnetic and magnetotelluric surveys over the area. These geophysical surveys outlined a strong magnetic anomaly surrounded by a low-resistivity response coincident with historical gold-copper assays.
The six holes at Snip North were drilled along a north-south fence of holes across the northeast striking structural trend to evaluate its mineral occurrences and associated host rocks. Significant gold-copper mineralization was encountered in five of the holes. Highlights from the drilling include:
• 421.5 meters averaging 0.3 g/t gold, 0.09% copper, and 0.59 g/t silver in hole SN-23-02.
• 252 meters averaging 0.61 g/t gold, 0.07% copper, and 1.36 g/t silver in hole SN-23-04.
• 277 meters averaging 0.8 g/t gold, 0.07% copper, and 1.19 g/t silver in hole SN-23-05.
• 201.1 meters averaging 0.48 g/t gold, 0.02% copper, and 2.41 g/t silver in hole SN-23-06.
"We are clearly at the top of the system with the intrusive target below us. Our drill results should enable us to vector towards improving mineralization including what we expect will be higher copper grades," said Fronk. "We believe we are on the track of a sizeable porphyry mineral system with ore grade potential which we will pursue aggressively in next year's drilling."
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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