Cross Lake gears up for more drilling at Ruddock Creek

Vancouver — With last season’s drilling ending on a high note, Vancouver-based Cross Lake Minerals (CRN-T) is eager to pick up where it left off on its Ruddock Creek zinc-lead property in south-central British Columbia. The company plans to track the thick high-grade lead-zinc mineralization in the E zone, on the other side of a major fault toward a 1975 drill hole that hit massive sulpides.

Cross Lake aims to increase the scope of the Ruddock Creek project by firming up historical resources and extending the E zone, which has proved challenging owing to its structural complexity and the property’s remote location. Situated some 100 km north of Revelstoke, in south-central British Columbia, the 19-sq.-km Ruddock Creek property ranges from 900 to 2,800 metres in elevation.

“We are going to update our resource estimate and continue to track the mineralization this year,” says Graham Keevil, the company’s spokesman. “We are waiting for the snow to melt and then will get started with the drilling.”

Cross Lake plans to use the bulk of a recent $1.2-million flow-through financing to fund the drill program.

Cross Lake’s Ruddock Creek property lies in the Monashee mountains on the northwest flank of Frenchman Cap dome in the Shuswap metamorphic complex. The core gneisses of the dome lie beneath metasediments interlayered with marble. The sedimentary package has been intruded and replaced by pegmatites and granites.

The Shuswap complex is well-known for hosting conformable lead-zinc deposits. At Ruddock Creek, sedimentary exhalative style zinc-lead-silver mineralization is found within calc-silicate and quartzite. Massive sulphide lenses comprise sphalerite, pyrrhotite, galena, pyrite and minor chalcopyrite, associated with barite and fluorite in places.

The thickest of nine mineralized zones on the property is the E zone, which has been the main focus of exploration and drilling. It was initially discovered in an outcropping of zinc-lead massive sulphide mineralization, its easternmost point. Structural studies show that the E zone occurs in the core of an overturned antiform. The thickest mineralized intervals are found in the nose of a fold that plunges some 3,000 metres west. A late episode of block faulting is believed to have displaced the main E zone downwards on the west side of a major fault referred to as the E fault.

Falconbridge and later Cominco explored the property from 1960 to 1975. A historical mineral resource estimate, based on nearly 9,000 metres of diamond drilling by the companies, outlined an inferred resource of 1.5 million tonnes grading 8.4% zinc and 1.6% lead within the E zone. Another 1.2 million tonnes are inferred up to the E fault.

Vancouver-based Doublestar Resources (DSR-V) has had the ground since 1999. The junior was able to confirm historic assays through a mapping/sampling program it did in 2000.

Cross Lake can acquire up to a 70% interest in the Ruddock Creek property from Doublestar by spending $4.75 million over three years and issuing 700,000 shares.

Cross Lake’s drilling last year extended the high-grade zone of massive sulphides to the west. Crews drilled 1,838 metres (11 holes) in all.

The holes all intersected significant zinc and lead mineralization. The E zone can now be followed starting from where it outcrops on the east, for some 250 metres, as far west as the E fault. The zone appears to be about 150 metres wide.

Holes 107 and 108 intersected what is believed to be the core of the deposit. Hole 107 returned 15.1 metres grading 16.59% zinc and 3.7% lead at a depth of 144.2 metres, while hole 108 intersected 12.6 metres grading 11.54% zinc and 2.2% lead at 133.1 metres down-hole.

Southern edge

Other significant intercepts include 10.3 metres grading 7.56% zinc and 1.57% lead at a depth of 132 metres in hole 105, and 10.8 metres of 4.18% zinc and 0.59% lead at 116 metres down-hole in hole 106. These two holes are thought to represent the southern edge of the E zone. The grades are somewhat lower, owing to dilution from late-stage pegmatite dykes barren of mineralization.

Drill results released in October expanded the E zone another 70 metres north and 50 metres west. Hole 109 intersected 24.6 metres of 9.15% zinc with 2.3% lead from 175 metres depth that included a higher grade interval of 5.8 metres of 24.7% zinc and 5.72% lead. True thickness is estimated at 91% for this hole.

Hole 110 intersected two intervals estimated at 83% true thickness. The upper one, from 184.5 metres depth, ran 11.21% zinc and 2.6% lead over 2.2 metres while the lower, starting at 198.5 metres, ran just over 8% zinc with 1.7% lead over 5.3 metres.

Hole 111 cut 6.8% zinc and 1.37% lead over 4.5 metres starting from 197.5 metres down-hole, and 12.2% zinc with 2.9% lead over 7.4 metres from 213 metres down-hole. The true thickness for this hole was estimated at 77% of the core length.

The company believes that the project’s scope could be increased significantly if the E zone indeed continues beyond the E fault.

In support of the zone’s continuation, Cominco’s hole 75-1, which was collared some 350 metres west of the E fault, hit 5.5 metres of massive sulphides that graded 7.6% zinc and 1.5% lead. The company believes the mineralization is hosted by one of the limbs of the folded E zone.

This year, Cross Lake plans to target the E zone immediately west of the E fault and if successful, continue tracking the zone further west.

The company’s exploration will also include work around six other massive sulphide exposures on the surface of the property.

Cross Lake also plans to drill its recently acquired Kneb property. The target there is a large geophysical anomaly outlined by Cominco in 1998 to follow up a massive sulphide boulder trail.

Massive sulphide boulders and showings also occur on the company’s LJ property northwest of Revelstoke and its Ghost property near the town.

In the Omineca district in the north-central part of the province, Cross Lake has a number of early stage zinc-copper-silver exploration projects near Mackenzie.

Bard Ventures (CBS-V) is footing the exploration bill to earn a half stake in the Ingenika, Swanell, and Wasi Creek properties. Bard can earn 50% by spending $2 million on the properties over three years.

Ten drill targets have been pinpointed based on the results of last fall’s 2-D and 3-D induced polarization surveys that totalled 88.3 line-km.

On the gold front, the company is nearing production at the QR gold mine near Barkerville, and 58 km southeast of Quesnel. The QR mine project is Cross Lake’s primary focus. The company is entertaining bids from contractors for the mine development and for commissioning of the mill and related facilities. The company recently began dewatering the underground workings of the Midwest zone.