Benchmark Metals Inc. May 24 reported that drilling cut high-grade gold and silver within a wider zone of mineralization in the Marmot discovery area of the company's Lawyers property in Northern British Columbia.

According to a calculation completed about a year ago, Lawyers hosts 40.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.19 grams per metric ton (1.55 million ounces) gold and 38.7 g/t (50.2 million oz) silver; plus 16.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.19 g/t (620,000 oz) gold and 34.7 g/t (18.1 million oz) silver.

These resources are found at Cliff Creek, AGB, and Dukes Ridge, deposits that are associated with previous mining on the 56-square-mile (144 square kilometers) property.

While much of the 2021 drill program at Lawyers focused on upgrading and expanding resources, the company also explored the property's wider potential.

This includes extensive drilling at Marmot and Marmot East, discovery zones about 3,000 meters southeast of Cliff Creek where grab samples with up to 61.3 g/t gold and 3,890 g/t silver have been collected.

The 2020 Marmot discovery hole, 20MLDD005, cut 101 meters averaging 0.55 g/t gold and 21.8 g/t silver.

The latest batch of results is from holes drilled during the 2021 programs at Marmot.

Benchmark reports that this drilling encountered significant zones of broad bulk-tonnage and high-grade mineralization similar in nature to the zones encountered within the deposit areas at Cliff Creek and AGB.

Hole 22MLDD002 cut 47 meters averaging 1.03 g/t gold and 44.3 g/t silver from a depth of 65 meters, including a three-meter subsection averaging 12.10 g/t gold and 430.1 g/t silver.

This hole was drilled roughly 300 meters northwest of 21MLDD004, a hole that cut similar mineralization.

Hole 21MLDD004 cut 77 meters averaging 1.11 g/t gold and 35.9 g/t silver from a depth of 257 meters, including a three-meter subsection averaging 16.29 g/t gold and 599.7 g/t silver. This hole also cut 31 meters of 0.88 g/t gold and 15.22 g/t silver from a depth of 65 meters.

"The Marmot Zone results continue to demonstrate the new discovery potential that could add more gold and silver mineralization to its established multi-million-ounce deposits," said Benchmark Metals CEO John Williamson. "Benchmark will soon deliver a larger mineral resource estimate from near 100,000 metres of new drilling in 2021 and 2022."

So far, Benchmark has completed roughly 8,700 meters of drilling in 29 holes at Marmot, as well as extensive rock and soil sampling and multiple ground-based geophysical surveys.

Click on image to enlarge map.

The company says geophysical interpretation suggests a correlation between gold-silver mineralization and the margins of magnetic highs with coincident chargeability anomalies. The distribution of these geophysical relationships, coupled with core logging and field observations, suggest the mineralizing systems at this discovery remains open in all directions.

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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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