North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Skeena Resources Ltd. May 25 reported that recent drilling indicates that stored waste material from previous mining could be another source of ore material for a future operation at the Eskay Creek gold-silver mine in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.

An underground mine operated by Barrick Gold Corp. from 1994 to 2008 recovered roughly 3.3 million ounces of gold and 160 million oz of silver from ore with average grades of 45 grams per metric ton gold and 2,224 g/t silver.

The underground mine development was largely tunneled in the often-mineralized rhyolite in the footwall of the mudstone sequence that hosted the very high-grade gold and silver mineralization. Although volcanic rocks tunneled through possessed variable gold and silver grades, the rhyolite-hosted mineralization was considered uneconomic due to the low prices of gold and silver at the time.

As a result, this development rock was transferred to the Albino Waste Facility southwest of the mine to be stored underwater.

This spring, while there was still ice to support a drill rig, Skeena completed initial testing of the gold- and silver-enriched waste material.

The first four holes of this program encountered:

• 16.01 meters averaging 4.17 g/t gold and 160 g/t silver in hole SK-21-841.

• 12.16 meters averaging 4.18 g/t gold and 190 g/t silver in SK-21-842.

• 22.8 meters averaging 4.16 g/t gold and 204 g/t silver in SK-21-843.

• 19.76 meters averaging 3.13 g/t gold and 127 g/t silver in SK-21-844.

Skeena Resources Ltd.

The Albino facility covers roughly 128,900 square meters. The more than 15-meter thickness of waste material indicated by the initial drilling, this could provide a sizable source of already mined material at grades similar to those in the current resource being considered for a future open-pit mine at Eskay Creek.

The first phase of drilling was completed on 50-meter centers, and the eight holes tested a 5,200-square-meter area or only about 4% of the entire waste facility.

Although more holes were planned, deteriorating ice conditions forced an early end to the spring drilling.

Skeena will release the results from the remaining four holes of the spring drilling at Albino when they arrive and, based on the encouraging results so far, plans to resume drilling of the waste facility toward the end of this year.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

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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