Benchmark drills high-grade gold and silver near surface at Cliff Creek

Benchmark Metals (TSXV: BNCH; US-OTC: BNCHF) has drilled 73.6 grams gold per tonne and 1,738.5 grams silver per tonne over 3.1 metres at its Cliff Creek North deposit. The deposit is one of three on the company’s wholly owned Lawyers property in B.C.’s Golden Horseshoe.

Drilling the Cliffe Creek North deposit has yielded broad zones of bulk-tonnage and high-grade mineralization. The assays above come from hole 21CCRC041 less than 100 metres below surface.

Benchmark highlighted the results, saying the mineralization is increasing with high gold grades occurring within the high-grade bulk tonnage zones (30.5 metres at 8.96 grams gold per tonne and 233.04 grams silver per tonne, including 15.2 metres at 17.59 grams gold per tonne and 454.33 grams silver per tonne). There is also excellent continuity of infill and expansion drilling within the Cliff Creek North zone (531 metres at 1.24 grams gold per tonne and 17.73 grams silver per tonne, including 6.4 metres at 2.51 grams gold per tonne and 54.94 grams silver per tonne).

The new drill results show significant potential for expansion with the high grades occurring along the rim of the pit shell modelled in 2021, said Benchmark. The resource estimate within the pit shell (using a 0.5 gram gold-equivalent per tonne cutoff grade) includes 40 million indicated tonnes grading 1.18 grams gold per tonne and 38.1 grams silver per tonne and 15 million inferred tonnes at 0.96 gram gold per tonne and 25.1 grams silver per tonne.

The Cliff Creek North zone is open along strike and below 550 vertical metres, which suggests that underground mining may be appropriate as well as open pit production. The out-of-pit resource includes 333,000 indicated tonnes grading 3.24 grams gold per tonne and 110.1 grams silver per tonne (using a 2 gram gold-equivalent per tonne cutoff), plus 1.2 million inferred tonnes at 4.03 grams gold per tonne and 152.3 grams silver per tonne.

The total resources at the Lawyers project contain 1.5 million oz. gold and 50.2 million oz. silver in the indicated portion and 620,000 oz. gold and 18.1 million oz. silver in the inferred portion.

Benchmark completed a $30 million flow-through share offering last year to fund work at the Lawyers project. The company hopes to outline 3+ million oz. contained gold and silver at the Lawyers project.