Brixton cuts mega-intercept at Thorn in BC

Brixton Metals (BBB-V) has pulled a whopper of an intercept from the Thorn project in northwest B.C., hitting 95 metres grading 904 grams per tonne silver equivalent from near surface.

The grades in hole 11-60 broke down as 1.71 grams gold per tonne, 628 grams silver per tonne, 0.12% copper, 3.31% lead and 2.39% zinc from 6 metres depth, while the intercept included a 9-metre section grading 3.04 grams gold, 2,984 grams silver, 0.53% copper, 11.65% lead and 3.42% zinc from 64 metres depth.

On the day the news broke Brixton’s share price shot up as much as 15¢ in midday trading before ending up 6.5¢, or 35%, at 25¢ with 11.8 million shares traded on the day. Kiska Metals (KSK-V), from which Brixton is working to earn 51% of the Thorn project, was up 4¢, or 12%, to 37¢ on the day.

Gary Thompson, chairman and CEO of Brixton, described the results as “pretty amazing” in a phone interview, but notes the company still has much to learn about the project.

“We have more questions than we do answers on any orientation,” Thompson says. “It’s basically a breccia unit we’ve drilled into, and we drilled into it with a bunch of different holes, but we just happened to hit a hole that is nothing like what’s been hit before.”

The headline-making hole 60 was the most easterly collared hole in the Oban drilling area at Thorn, cut at an azimuth of 220 degrees with a dip of negative 70 degrees to a depth of 243 metres. The entire hole was mineralized, with the latter 142 metres of the hole grading 53 grams silver, 0.16 gram gold, 0.2% lead and 0.47% zinc. Hole 57, also drilled on the Oban, hit 38 metres grading 252 grams silver equivalent from 186 metres depth.

Brixton reports that mineralization in the area is hosted by Cretaceous oban breccia, interpreted as a magmatic hydrothermal breccia pipe and characterized by fragments of quartz-feldspar porphyry with lesser andesitic tuff and rhyolite fragments. Mineralization occurs as blebs, disseminated, chaotic sulphide stringers and sulphide rinds surrounding fragments with pyrite, sphalerite, sulphosalts and minor chalcopyrite.

Thompson said hole 60 was drilled to cross-intersect encouraging gold showings near surface in holes 19 and 21, which respectively hit 39 metres grading 1.23 grams gold and 104.17 grams silver from 6 metres, and 37 metres grading 0.92 gram gold and 124.08 grams silver from 19 metres depth.

Hole 60 was included in the last round of drill results from 2011’s 5,700-metre drill program. The company will have to wait until next May at the earliest to start drilling the property again, but Thompson is planning to step things up a notch when drilling resumes.

“Obviously we want to have a big season and we want to do a lot more detailed drilling, and lots of different directions,” Thomspon says. “My thinking is, let’s set up on hole sixty and do a wagon-wheel approach, try to figure out what kind of orientation we have here and then obviously step away from it, see what else we have out east . . . I suspect this thing is going to be sort of irregular and wiggly woggly, and not some nice, easy blob to drill off, unfortunately. That’s sort of the nature of these things.”

In 2011 Brixton had partially focused exploration efforts on the Kahilt property in Alaska optioned from Millrock Resources (MRO-V), but because of insufficient funds for proper testing, a lack of results with actual testing and the encouraging results from Thorn, the company has abandoned the option.

“When we get these kinds of results it’s pretty obvious where we’re going to focus our efforts,” Thompson says. “You don’t need a lot of tonnes when you’ve got grades like this to make good economics.”

The option agreement on Thorn, meanwhile, requires Brixton to spend another $2.5 million to meet the $5-million threshold to earn 51% of the project. From there Kiska has the option to enter a joint venture as a 49% partner, or let Brixton spend $10 million more to earn 65% of the project.

With $2 million in cash-on-hand in December, the company is going to have to raise some money if it wants to conduct a full drill program this year, though Thompson noted that the 20.3 million warrants the company has out could bring in $6 million. The company has 44.7 million shares outstanding.