![]() This required high grades to ensure economic viability. Snip was historically burdened with the high cost of being a stand-alone operation serviced by air via the Bronson airstrip, and by hovercraft from Wrangell, Alaska by way of the Iskut River. The deposit remains partially open along strike, and in some production areas, where the estimated cut-off grade of 24 g/t Au was below the economic limit for mining at the time. ![]() The zone has been traced by drilling and mining over a strike length of approximately 1,000 metres and over a dip length of 500 metres. The Twin Zone occupies an east-southeast striking structure with dips ranging from 30 to 90 degrees to the southwest. Total sulphide content seldom exceeds two percent and the mineralized structures characteristically contain minor pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite and rare galena. Gold mineralization occurs in one centimetre to one metre wide alternating bands of massive calcite, isseminated to massive pyrite, biotite-calcite as thin bands or streaks, or in quartz with sulphides in a crackle breccia or pyritic to non-pyritic fault gouge. A barren, post mineralization dike divides the main vein into two parts for most of its length, hence the name Twin Zone. Other sub parallel structures located in the footwall to the Twin Zone accounted for the rest of the production. Approximately 60% of the production was obtained from the Twin Zone, a 0.5 to 15 metre wide sheared quartz-carbonate-sulphide vein system that cuts through a massively bedded feldspathic greywacke-siltstone sequence. Other major deposits within the Golden Triangle are also related to compositionally similar Early Jurassic intrusions.The Snip deposit occurs within the southeast trending Bronson structural corridor which also controls the other significant deposits within the Iskut River area. The Snip deposit is an auriferous southwest-dipping shear vein system, hosted within Upper Triassic Stuhini Group feldspathic meta-sediments that are intruded by Early Jurassic age stocks and plutons. Other significant projects in the Golden Triangle include Pretium’s Brucejack and Valley of the Kings gold deposits, Imperial Metal’s Red Chris porphyry copper-gold mine, Teck and Novagold’s Galore Creek deposit, Teck’s Shaft Creek porphyry copper-gold deposit, Seabridge’s porphyry copper-gold Deep Kerr Project, and Ascot’s re-activated Premier Project. Those drill results triggered a massive claim staking rush and exploration boom throughout the Golden Triangle that led to the discovery and development of Barrick Gold’s Eskay Creek (past production of 3.27 million ounces of gold at a grade of 49 g/t and 158 million ounces of silver at 2,406 g/t). The Snip vein mineralization, discovered in 1964 by Cominco geologist Ted Muraro, lay dormant until drilled in 1986 as part of a Cominco joint venture with Netolitzky-led Delaware Resources. “In parallel with SRK, Skeena’s Kathi Dilworth, has developed a very robust and defendable resource model that will formulate the basis of future economic studies.” History of the Property “Our efforts in the coming months will focus on expanding these now well-defined resources with expansion drilling in the newly evolving 200 Footwall Corridor as well as other near-mine targets,” notes Paul Geddes P.Geo, Vice President of Exploration & Resource Development. Table 1: Snip Indicated and Inferred underground resources reported undiluted at a 2.5 g/t Au cut-off grade within stope optimized mining shapes: Resources within the Inferred category include 402,000 ounces of gold hosted within 942,000 tonnes at an average gold grade of 13.3 g/t Au (Table 1). The Indicated resources include 244,000 ounces of gold hosted within 539,000 tonnes at an average gold grade of 14.0 g/t Au. In July 2020, Skeena released an underground constrained Mineral Resource Estimate for the Snip Gold Project. The Snip mine produced approximately one million ounces of gold from 1991 until 1999 at an average gold grade of 27.5 g/t. The property consists of one mining lease and eight mineral claims totaling approximately 4,546 hectares in the Liard Mining Division. Skeena acquired 100% interest in the past-producing Snip mine from Barrick Gold in July 2017.
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