The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Strong, shallow gold-silver mineralization boosts potential North of 60 Mining News – April 2, 2021
A technician logs core from a 2020 hole drilled into the AGB zone on Benchmark Metals' Lawyers gold-silver project.
Benchmark Metals Inc. March 31 said shallow zones of strong gold and silver mineralization tapped with 2020 drilling at the AGB zone indicate the potential for this deposit to be the site of early mining at the Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia.
AGB is one of three main resource areas in the central portion of the more than 20-kilometer- (12.4 miles) long Lawyers mineralized trend that runs across the property. Benchmark sees the potential of building a 5-million-oz gold-equivalent resource in these zones – AGB, Cliff Creek, and Dukes Ridge-Phoenix.
Toward the goal of building this resource, Benchmark completed 87,298 meters of drilling at Lawyers last year, including 15,484 meters of drilling in 79 of the holes at AGB.
Some highlighted intercepts from previously released 2020 assay results from AGB include:
• 14.2 meters averaging 4.15 grams per metric ton gold and 61 g/t silver in 20AGBDD003.
• 35.2 meters averaging 2.22 g/t gold and 75.4 g/t silver in 20AGBDD007.
• 58 meters averaging 1.63 g/t gold and 61.6 g/t silver in 20AGBDD009.
• 4.7 meters averaging 3.15 g/t gold and 711.3 g/t silver in 20AGBDD024.
• 43 meters averaging 1.92 g/t gold and 55.8 g/t silver in 20AGBDD035.
• 55 meters averaging 1.61 g/t gold and 14 g/t silver in 20AGBDD047.
• 52.9 meters averaging 5.95 g/t gold and 130.9 g/t silver in 20AGBDD060.
Highlights from the latest batch of AGB assays include:
• 66 meters averaging 2.34 g/t gold and 51.5 g/t silver in 20AGBDD039.
• 77.1 meters averaging 1.07 g/t gold and 43.1 g/t silver in 20AGBDD043.
• 42.3 meters averaging 1.87 g/t gold and 99.7 g/t silver in 20AGBDD053.
Benchmark says that hole 20AGBDD039, which had a five-meter subinterval averaging 15.31 g/t gold and 180.8 g/t silver, is the most southerly hole drilled at AGB last year. The company says a broad zone of strong mineralization is emerging at the southern extent of the 650-meter-long AGB zone that remains open at depth and along strike.
"These drill results demonstrate strong continuity and higher-grade gold and silver material near surface. The results are providing a path to expand the AGB zone to the south and to depth," said Benchmark Metals CEO John Williamson. "This zone is showing potential to become a higher-grade, initial open pit mine that would return substantial economics in the opening years of a mining scenario."
The company is planning for the 2021 drilling to target the southern margins of AGB due to its potential to add additional near-surface gold and silver ounces to the deposit.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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