Positive metallurgy at Prairie Creek

Vancouver — Canadian Zinc (CZN-T) is encouraged by test results on material pulled from the Prairie Creek zinc-lead-silver deposit in the Northwest Territories.

SGS Lakefield Research tested bulk samples of both oxide and sulphide vein material from underground. Results from a heavy-media gravity separation circuit indicate higher-than-expected recovery rates.

Vein-hosted mineralization at the deposit is associated with the north-south-trending Prairie Creek fault, which has been traced for more than 10 km.

A dozen separate, veined massive sulphide occurrences have been identified, and these consist of quartz-vein systems heavily mineralized with lead, zinc, copper and silver.

Underground development on various levels has proved the continuity of one vein along at least 940 metres of strike, and drilling indicates a further 1.2 km of continuation. The vein system remains open northward and at depth.

In the early 1990s, a second kind of mineralization was discovered at Prairie Creek: stratabound- or stratiform-type, which generally occurs between depths of 300 and 500 metres below surface. The stratiform massive sulphides contain zinc, lead and iron sulphides, plus some silver and minor copper.

Canadian Zinc’s predecessor company, San Andreas Resources, acquired an option on the project in 1991, and then carried out extensive drilling and rehabilitation of underground workings. In 1998, an independent resource calculation on Zone 3 indicated a geological resource of 11.8 million tonnes grading 12.5% zinc, 10.1% lead and 161 grams silver.

A scoping study in 2001 suggested that the operation could be brought to production at a capital cost of $40 million. Annual output was pegged at 43,000 tonnes zinc plus byproduct lead and copper concentrates containing significant silver.