Cominco/Redfern drill program reveals massive sulphide lens

Exploration work at the old Tulsequah Chief mine in northwestern British Columbia has outlined massive sulphide mineralization in a brand new zone called the G lens. The property is being explored by Cominco Ltd. (TSE) under a joint venture agreement with Redfern Resources (VSE).

Discovered in 1987, follow-up drilling on this lens has enhanced initial results and returned several good intersections including 5.7 ft of 0.17 oz gold and 9.2 oz silver per ton 2.4% copper, 2% lead, and 14% zinc.

Among the wider drill intersections reported was 25 ft of 0.065 oz gold, 1.9 oz silver, 0.61% copper, 0.6% lead and 3.4% zinc. Another hole yielded 23.5 ft of 0.04 oz gold, 1.9 oz silver, 0.3% copper, 1% lead and 3% zinc.

The G lens has a strike and dip length of 450 ft and is open in all directions, says Michael Kenyon, a Redfern director. His company has spent about $1 million on the property under its option agreement with Cominco and it will have to spend another $2 million to earn a 40% working interest. Cominco is operator for the program. The $3 million total is expendable over a 4-year period and Redfern is ahead of its commitments by two years at present, he confirms.

Underground drilling was done this year from the 5,400 level which is about 400 ft above sea level and right at the camp site. Bill Wolfe, Cominco’s exploration manager for Western Canada, says the location of existing mine workings prevented them from drilling the various lenses any deeper so they are shutting down for winter.

“The next program will be to do some drifting out into the hangingwall and get the drills set up a fair distance from the deposit so we can get a deep cut on all these things,” he notes. No new development was done this year, only rehabilitation of existing mine workings. “We will look at this over the winter and put together a program for spring,” he adds.

The exploration drift will be established to test the G, B and E lenses in greater detail. Kenyon confirms there is a new hydrothermal system that was picked up last year which will be tested from surface.

Most of the existing reserves in the mine are in the B and E lenses which just started to pick up at the lowest level when the mine shut down. These have only been tested to about 100 ft below the level and considerable potential remains here, Kenyon says. The sulphide orebody has been tilted on its side and faulted; so it’s difficult to tell whether they were single entities originally or they have been stretched by folding and faulting. In any event, the geological environment is very attractive for massive sulphides and they plan to be back there next year.