Vancouver The first round of drilling over the BRT massive sulphide showing on the Foremore property in northwestern British Columbia has failed to return any base metal values for owner Roca Mines (ROK-V).
The 7-hole program cut a thick sequence of the favourable felsic unit but only sporadic gold values were encountered. Hole 11, which tested the stratigraphy immediately down dip and to the northeast along strike of the showing yielded 7.92 grams gold per tonne over 2.3 metres. The gold mineralization occurs in a 15.9 metre section of laminated, disseminated to semi-massive pyrite, with minor sphalerite and galena. Holes 5 through 7 tested the down dip estension of the sulphide horizon to the southwest returning only anomalous gold values.
Moving 100 metres south of the showing, hole 8 failed to return any significant values, while hole 9 returned 0.94 gram gold over 1.8 metres.
The Foremore property is sandwiched between Barrick Gold‘s (ABX-T) Eskay Creek operation and SpectrumGold‘s recently acquired Galore Creek copper-gold porphyry deposit.
In its inaugural drill program, Roca put down four holes into the SG showing where mineralization is hosted in quartz-sericite altered intermediate to felsic volcanics. Grab samples returned up to 23.8% combined lead-zinc, plus 20.1 grams gold. The assay results for these holes are still pending.
The company drilled the remaining holes some 3.5-km northeast into the BRT area, where Roca discovered massive sulphide mineralization uphill from the North Boulder field. Samples collected from outcrop yielded an average of 10.2% zinc, 8.6% lead, 0.27% copper, 2.04 grams gold and 186.6 grams silver over 3 metres. The planar sulphide body is hosted in chlorite-sericite-pyrite schist that has been deformed into a 20-degree south to southeast plunging antiform. The zone, which lies at the transition between well-stratified deformed phyllitic sedimentary rocks and an overlying mafic volcanic package, occurs structurally and stratigraphically below the horizon that hosts the SG showing. The alteration at the BRT zone indicates a low sulphidation volcanic hosted massive sulphide type of mineralization. Gold values often exceed 2 grams, making the zone a likely candidate for precious metal enrichment with the gold showing a strong correlation with arsenic and not barite.
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