Junior
The company has completed an initial nine diamond drill holes in an attempt to test the bulk-tonnage potential of a gold-bearing, epithermal quartz vein-stockwork zone. Drilling tested four sections of the zone, with each section set 200 metres apart along strike. Assay results are pending.
The main zone centres on quartz vein structures, which were the focus of high-grade underground mining from the 1930s through to the 1950s. An envelope of alteration and stockwork veining extends out from the central vein structure over widths of up to 200 metres.
The zone strikes northwest and has been traced by geological mapping, and geochemical soil and rock sampling over a strike length of 1,500 metres. The core of the geochemical anomaly was tested by four trenches averaging 30-40 metres in length. A total of 41 samples, each representing a sampled length of 5 metres, averaged 1.3 grams gold and 9.64 grams silver per tonne.
The area of interest is underlain by a series of volcanic rocks consisting of ignimbrites, rhyolitic tuffs and porphyritic andesites. The package of rocks is cut by several high-level intrusives. Most of the known mineralized areas lie along a series of northwesterly trending shear zones. Old mine workings have been identified over a distance of 2 km along the shear zone.
A regional exploration program is currently assessing other parts of the 16,000-ha property.
Cream Minerals
In related news, another of the Lang companies,
The Kaslo property covers several small mines that were worked for high-grade silver ore near the turn of the century. In 1998, Cream completed 3,000 metres of drilling that focused on five road-accessible targets, situated 2 km apart on two parallel shear zones. These shear structures controlled the deposition of high-grade silver-lead-zinc replacement bodies, as well as breccia veins, which were historically exploited by small-scale miners.
The drilling program was designed to test the continuity of disseminated silver mineralization within the shear structures. The zones have been traced by very low frequency-electromagnetic surveys over a strike length of 6.4 km.
Arthur Troup, Cream’s vice-president of exploration, says about two-thirds of the 34 holes drilled last year hit mineralization, with more significant results coming from the historic Bismark and Cork mine areas.
Significant silver-lead-zinc mineralization was encountered in four of five closely spaced holes drilled in the vicinity of the Bismark mine workings. Results are highlighted by 9.3 metres averaging 313.7 grams silver, 0.73% lead and 0.92% zinc, starting at a down-hole depth of 15.8 metres in hole 98-8. A 200-metre stepout south of the Bismark workings, however, encountered only pyrite and pyrrhotite in the shear structure.
A 3-dimensional geological model of the drill results suggests the mineralization occurs in a 4-metre-wide breccia vein system that runs parallel to the historic Bismark workings. Coincident geophysical and geochemical anomalies indicate that the shear structure extends a further 1.7 km north of the Bismark mine.
In the former Cork mine area, drilling in 1997 encountered a 6.5-metre-thick replacement-style body, with hole 4 averaging 209 grams silver, 6.02% lead and 8.09% zinc over a core length of 21.1 metres. Follow-up drilling in this same body in 1998 yielded a 14.8-metre interval averaging 211 grams silver, 5.06% lead and 2.5% zinc, starting at a downhole depth of 57.4 metres in hole 5.
The downdip extension was further tested by hole 8, which intersected a 1.18-metre interval of 12.6 grams silver, 0.51% lead and 5.09% zinc at 223.4 metres downhole, and a 0.74-metre interval of 144.7 grams silver, 2.26% lead and 1.56% zinc at 238.4 metres.
Stepout drilling 250 metres north of the Cork mine, along a 2.1-km-long geophysical conductor, showed only anomalous values.
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