Location: Kerby Centre, 1133 – 7 Ave SW, Calgary, AB, Lecture Room 205. Please check in at the Reception Desk and they will direct you to Room 205. If you are using the Kerby Centre parking lot, you can validate your parking at the same time.
Skeena Resources Spectrum Project
Jacques Stacey, MSc
(Source: http://www.skeenaresources.com/projects/spectrum)
Skeena Resources Limited owns 100% of the Spectrum Gold property, subject to a 1.75% NSR royalty, of which 1.65% is in favour of Sandstorm Gold Ltd. The 3,580 hectare property is located approximately 37 km west of Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine and 16 km west-northwest of Skeena’s GJ deposit.
Spectrum hosts structurally-controlled, high-grade, mesothermal gold mineralization cutting a zone of low-grade gold-copper porphyry-style mineralization. It is located in the prolific Golden Triangle of northwestern British Columbia. This area hosts other world-class gold and gold-copper mines and projects including Valley of the Kings (Pretivm), KSM (Seabridge), Galore Creek (Teck-Novagold), Snip (Barrick), Eskay Creek (Barrick) and Red Chris (Imperial). Infrastructure in the area has been greatly improved by the 2014 completion of BC Hydro’s Northwest Transmission Line and Red Chris – Iskut Extension powerline, which passes within 30 km of the property.
Skeena’s corporate goal is to continue to expand upon historically known high-grade and bulk tonnage mineralized zones. A total of 17,356 m drilling in 61 holes was completed at Spectrum in 2015. Most of these holes were drilled in the Central and 500 Colour zones in order to expand the known deposit and to prepare a 43-101 compliant resource estimate to be released in 2016.
The Spectrum property includes 13 known gold prospects most of which have received no previous drilling. The Central and 500 Colour zones are the most advanced, with nearly 162 diamond drill holes including 50 completed by Columbia Gold Mines prior to 1993. A non-43-101 compliant resource of 614,000 tonnes grading 12.3 g/t Au at a 5.0 g/t cut-off, for 7550 Kg Au (243,600 ounces) was estimated by Columbia over a strike length of 600 m and a depth of only 150 m. The zones are partially open along strike in both directions, and at depth. The reader is cautioned that the historical estimate is not current and a Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate. Skeena is not treating the historical estimate as a current resource estimate.
Prospecting on Spectrum commenced in 1957 with the discovery of a high-grade vein referred to as the “Hawk Vein”. In the 1970’s, work shifted to the porphyry copper-gold targets in the vicinity of the Central Zone.
Mineralization is spatially associated with steeply-dipping fracture zones contained within a broad area of altered Stuhini Group intermediate volcanics and volcaniclastic rocks at the contact zone of a dike-like monzonite intrusion of probable Triassic-Jurassic age. This is the same geological setting as many of the major copper-gold deposits in the Golden Triangle, except that Spectrum has demonstrated much higher gold values.
The Central Zone mineralization consists of fault gouge, silica, k-feldspar and carbonate alteration, plus quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins and veinlet stockworks. The Central Zone trends northerly and has been drilled tested for over 600 metres of strike length to a depth of approximately 150 metres within a larger altered zone. Mineralization consists of gold-bearing pyrite, native gold, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite, and remains partially open along strike and down dip.
Highlighted high-grade drill intersections from 2015 include:
• DDH S15-015: 26.15 m grading 8.21 g/t Au, including 2.0 m grading 74.5 g/t Au
• DDH S15-022: 14.90 m grading 8.97 g/t Au, including 2.9 m grading 38.51 g/t Au
• DDH S15-043: 11.40 m grading 16.73 g/t Au, including 2.0 m grading 81.8 g/t Au
Throughout the property, there are also numerous scattered vein, structural, porphyry-style and skarn occurrences and geochemical anomalies. Mineralization is interpreted to be related to porphyry intrusions. Its characteristics are consistent with the upper portion of an alkalic porphyry-style copper-gold deposit.
The East Creek Zone, some 1.5 kilometers further to the north of the Central Zone, is a north-trending, 5 metre-wide silicified zone with gold, pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite, traced at surface for 600m strike length. A trench sample yielded 58.4 g/t Au over 2.6 m. The East Creek Zone has only been tested with 3 drill holes to date. Two of those drill holes yielded 1 to 2 g/t over less than 2 m, while the third hole yielded 34.45 g/t over 2.6 metres. Apart from a single drill hole to the north of the Central Zone Fault, most of the intervening 1.5 km section between the Central and East Creek Zones has not been drill tested and provides an attractive exploration target.
Skeena’s secondary target will be gold-copper mineralization of alkalic, porphyry-style affinity which sits adjacent to and partially coincident with the higher-grade Central zone Au mineralization described above.
Highlighted intersections from 2015 include:
• DDH S15-014: 209.0 m grading 1.22 g/t Au, 4.8 g/t Ag, 0.17% Cu
• DDH S15-039: 40.5 grading 0.82 g/t Au, 4.3 g/t Ag, and 0.17% Cu
The Skarn Showing, which yielded 2.9 g/t Au and 0.5% Cu over 20 metres in a trench, and the West Creek Showing, which yielded a grab sample of 31 g/t Au and 10% Cu, are both interpreted to be within this class and may be indicative of the potential for a larger, under-lying porphyry system which warrants further investigation.
Skeena intends to explore with as small an environmental footprint as possible, and looks forward to working with the Tahltan First Nation and local stakeholders and communities in order to advance a profitable, financially stable, project that the Company hopes will create value for its shareholders and lasting economic and social benefits for the region.
Presenter’s Bio:
Jacques Stacey was born and raised in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia. He received a BSc. in Geology from Saint Francis Xavier University in 1999. He moved to Calgary in 2000 to pursue a Master’s in Geology at University of Calgary with Dr. Dave Pattison. His thesis topic was Geology of the Bravo Lake Formation, central Baffin Island. Jacques had worked with the GSC on the Central Baffin Project, 2000-2002 doing regional mapping & detailed thesis work.
Jacques was hired by Taiga Consultants Ltd. in 2005, and was in continuous employment until their closure in January 2015. His geological career has taken him to Nunavut, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, NW Argentina, Patagonia, and Burkina Faso, West Africa. Deposit types he has studied include: Unconformity & Vein-hosted Uranium; Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide; Intrusion-related Gold; and Copper-Gold-Moly Porphyry.
Besides geology, his interests include hiking, skiing, music, painting, and literature.
The Calgary Mineral Exploration Group Society offers monthly lunchtime seminars relating to geology and mining in the province of Alberta, across Canada and around the world.
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Lecture Room 205, Kerby Centre
1133 7th Ave SW, Calgary, AB
Doors Open at 11:30am Talk Commences at 12:00 noon
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