The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Consolidates porphyry project in the heart of Hecla's Kinskuch North of 60 Mining News - December 22, 2023
Dolly Varden's consolidated Big Bulk and Kitsault Valley projects in Northern BC.
Dolly Varden Silver's Kitsault Valley and Big Bulk projects are hosted in Jurassic-aged Hazelton Group rocks.
Dolly Varden Silver Corp. Dec. 20 announced that it has entered into a deal to consolidate ownership of Big Bulk, a porphyry copper-gold project about 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the company's Kitsault Valley gold-silver project at the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
Big Bulk, which covers what is interpreted to be the northernmost of a string of several porphyry mineralized systems that extend 30 kilometers (19 miles) south to New Moly LLC's Kitsault molybdenum deposit, is completely encompassed by Hecla Mining Company's 230-square-mile (596 square kilometers) Kinskuch property.
Interestingly, Hecla owns a roughly 15.7% interest in Dolly Varden.
The southern portion of the Big Bulk property was initially explored by Teck Resources Ltd. and Canadian Empire Minerals from 2001 to 2003. The northern half of the system was drilled by AngloGold in 2009, which encountered porphyry-style alteration with copper and gold mineralization associated with quartz chalcopyrite and pyrite stockwork veins.
A new interpretation of the geology, based on recent mapping by the British Columbia Geological Survey, indicates that the Big Bulk target is a much larger calc-alkaline porphyry system tilted on its side with similarities in age and structural setting to Seabridge Gold Inc.'s Kerr-Sulpherets-Mitchell (KSM) copper-gold deposits to the north.
Work carried out by the University of British Columbia's Mineral Deposits Research Unit in 2018 places the Big Bulk intrusive along a regional structural trend that hosts numerous porphyry and epigenetic deposits. Within the Big Bulk porphyry system, higher higher-grade mineralization occurs in discreet mineralized phases that had not been targeted by previous operators.
"In the Golden Triangle, porphyry systems can represent metallogenic feeders to high-grade vein systems, such as the KSM Deposit that occurs adjacent to the Brucejack Mine," said Dolly Varden Silver President and CEO Shawn Khunkhun. "Big Bulk may represent a causative mineralized porphyry to the high-grade silver and gold deposits 10 kilometers to the west at the Kitsault Valley Trend."
In recent years, Dolly Varden has had an option on the northern portion of Big Bulk and Libero Copper & Gold Corp. has held the southern portion of this porphyry copper-gold land package that is now completely encompassed by Hecla's project.
To consolidate this land package, Dolly Varden has agreed to issue Libero 275,000 shares in exchange for the 3,205 hectares (7,920 acres) of claims that make up Libero's Big Bulk claims.
"We have been continuing to seek accretive consolidation opportunities in the area and the amalgamation of the southern portion of the Big Bulk copper gold porphyry with Dolly Varden's portion is our latest step," said Khunkhun.
In addition, Dolly Varden has amended its option agreement with LCT Holdings Inc., which is the underlying owner of the northern Big Bulk claims. Under the amended agreement, Dolly Varden can gain 100% ownership of the northern Big Bulk claims by paying LCT C$200,000 in cash and C$1.25 million in cash or shares by the end of 2027, including a C$50,000 payment by the end of this year.
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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