The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - January 17, 2025
A malachite-stained quartz magnetite vein sample collected from an outcrop at KSP.
Skeena Resources Ltd. Jan. 16 reported the discovery of a large gold-copper porphyry system at KSP, a regional exploration project lying between its Eskay Creek and Snip mine projects in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
KSP is a previously explored property that Skeena added to its portfolio through the acquisition of QuestEx Gold & Copper Ltd. in 2022.
While Skeena's 2024 focus was primarily on permitting and financing in preparation for building a mine at its Eskay Creek gold-silver project, the company did drill 22 holes (9,812 meters) to test promising gold-copper targets at KSP.
Highlight from this regional exploration drilling include (all intercepts are expressed in estimated true width of mineralization):
• 121.5 meters averaging 0.62 grams per metric ton gold, 2.84 g/t silver, and 0.14% copper from a depth of 22.5 meters in hole CP-24-001.
• 11 meters averaging 4.56 g/t gold, 1.34 g/t silver, and 0.06% copper from a depth of 209.5 meters in hole CP-24-001.
• 381.5 meters averaging 0.71 g/t gold, 0.69 g/t silver, and 0.03% copper from a depth of 116.5 meters in hole CP-24-004.
• 7.6 meters averaging 6.44 g/t gold, 3.4 g/t silver, and 0.23% copper from a depth of 79.4 meters in hole CP-24-008.
• 25 meters averaging 1.82 g/t gold, 2.85 g/t silver, and 0.11% copper from a depth of 26 meters in hole CP-24-011.
• 75.2 meters averaging 0.49 g/t gold, 2.15 g/t silver, and 0.02% copper from a depth of 273.4 meters in hole CP-24-011.
All of these holes were drilled at Camp Porphyry, a new discovery toward the north end of Skeena's 178,901-hectare (442,074 acres) KSP project.
While Camp was a prospect recognized by previous explorers at KSP, the large porphyry gold-copper target was never drilled due to other higher-priority areas on the property.
Mapping, sampling, and electromagnetic geophysics completed by Skeena last year elevated Camp's prospectivity, and the company decided to drill 11 widely spaced holes to test the target. These holes traced porphyry gold-silver-copper mineralization over an area of roughly 750 meters and to drilled depths exceeding 400 meters.
The company says the Z-axis Tipper Electromagnetic (ZTEM) survey carried out over the north portion of KSP last year identified an associated 6,000-meter-long electromagnetic anomaly underlying the Camp Creek porphyry discovered with last year's drilling.
"We are very encouraged that our first drill program at KSP has yielded the discovery of a new gold-copper porphyry system on the property," said Skeena Resources Vice President of Exploration and Resource Development Paul Geddes. "The headline intercept of 0.71 grams per tonne gold over 380 metres, is among many strong results and demonstrates a substantial volume of mineralized material in a potentially very large, essentially unexplored mineralized system."
Skeena also reported encouraging results from drilling at Khyber Pass, a previously discovered and tested target at KSP. One hole drilled at Khyber Pass in 2017 cut 34 meters averaging 0.63 g/t gold, 2.08 g/t silver, and 0.08% copper. This hole ended in mineralization.
Based on its reevaluation of core from historical drilling at Khyber Pass, Skeena determined that historical drilling may not have fully tested this prospect area.
Hole KP-24-004, drilled by Skeena last year, cut 41.7 meters averaging 0.72 g/t gold, 1.86 g/t silver, and 0.05% copper from a depth of 54 meters.
Based on this drilling and other work, the company believes Khyber may represent a higher level of a larger porphyry system that includes the Camp discovery.
Skeena did not indicate whether it plans to follow up on the potentially very large porphyry gold-copper discovery during regional exploration in 2025.
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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