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

Benchmark Metals Inc. March 7 announced plans for a 20,000-meter drill program targeting high-grade gold-silver mineralization extending below the Cliff Creek and Dukes Ridge gold-silver deposits on the company's Lawyers project in Northern British Columbia.

"The deposits remain open for additional resource growth with high-grade gold and silver mineralization below the existing deposits," said Benchmark Metals CEO John Williamson.

A preliminary economic assessment completed in August envisions ore from open-pit mines at three Lawyers deposits – AGB, Cliff Creek, and Dukes Ridge – feeding a centrally located mill that would produce 1.7 million ounces of gold and 26.7 million oz of silver over an initial 12 years of mining.

This PEA is based on 67.38 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 1.26 grams per metric ton (2.74 million oz) gold and 24.39 g/t (52.9 million oz) silver; plus 4.87 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 2.39 g/t (378,000 oz) gold and 39.41 g/t (6.2 million oz) silver.

Initial optimization studies completed since the PEA was finalized indicate that underground mining could significantly improve the economics of the proposed operation at Lawyers.

To better understand the underground potential, Benchmark's exploration team engaged Maptek, a leading geological mapping and modeling technology company, to generate a machine learning AI model to predictively determine grades and further characterize the resource. In addition, geochemical models of lithology and alteration were generated to complement the grade models and the existing structural and mineralization models.

Benchmark says these new models show the potential for expansion of high-grade mineralized zones both at depth and along strike.

This high-grade expansion potential is underscored by intercepts below the adjacent Cliff Creek and Dukes Ridge deposits – 4.82 meters averaging 11.58 g/t gold and 711.9 g/t silver in hole 20CCDD048 (Cliff Creek); 21 meters averaging 4.04 g/t gold and 84.1 g/t silver in hole 21CCDD049 (Cliff Creek); and 13.74 meters averaging 6.43 g/t gold and 378.6 g/t silver (Dukes Ridge).

Benchmark says mineralization at the 1,600-meter-long Cliff Creek deposit plunges to depth with high-grade zones that remain open to a depth of more than 550 meters depth at Cliff Creek North and more than 450 meters depth at Cliff Creek South, highlighting the potential for underground mining scenarios.

Benchmark Metals Inc.

The deepest holes drilled at Dukes Ridge show that gold-silver mineralization remains open to nearly 300 meters, and deeper drilling has the potential to extend this mineralization to depths of nearly 500 meters.

"The areas below the deposits contain four- to 15-metre-wide zones of consistent high-grade gold and silver mineralization," said Williamson. "The plunging high-grade mineralized zones appears to be 50 to (more than) 100 metres in length and in some areas the length is still unconstrained, both Cliff Creek and Dukes Ridge are open at depth."

A combination of step-out and infill drilling to be completed this year will focus on defining the extent of the high-grade zones along strike and at depth.

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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