Mining News: Junior chases B.C. zinc-lead-silver deposits

Canada Zinc Metals completes 2008 exploration on, near Akie property in northeast area of province, expands Cardiac Creek deposit

Rose Ragsdale

For Mining News

Canada Zinc Metals Corp. Oct. 8 said the first assay results of its 2008 drill program has significantly expanded the zinc-lead-silver bearing Cardiac Creek deposit on the Akie property in northeastern British Columbia.

The news came less than two weeks after the feisty junior changed its name from Mantle Resources Inc. “to better reflect its major focus, being zinc-lead projects in northeastern British Columbia.”

A total of 5,161 meters, or 16,773 feet, in 12 drill holes had been completed as of Oct. 8 on the Cardiac Creek property.

The road-accessible Akie zinc-lead property is situated within the southern-most part (Kechika Trough) of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of sediment exhalative zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.

Drilling on the Akie property by Inmet Mining Corp. during the period 1994 to 1996 and by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead SEDEX mineralization known as the Cardiac Creek deposit. The deposit is hosted by variably siliceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the Middle to Late Devonian “Gunsteel” formation.

Another SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposit of the same age that formed under very similar geological conditions to Akie is the giant Red Dog deposit in Northwest Alaska. Red Dog is the largest zinc mine in the world and is one of the largest accumulations of zinc-lead mineralization.

Vancouver, B.C.-based Canada Zinc Metals filed a NI 43-101 report May 30 that supported an estimated inferred resource of 23.6 million metric tons grading 7.6 percent zinc, 1.5 percent lead and 13.0 grams per metric ton silver at a 5 percent zinc cut-off grade.

Two similar deposits, Cirque and South Cirque, located some 20 kilometers, or 12.5 miles, northwest of Akie and owned under a joint venture by Teck Resources Ltd. and Korea Zinc, are also hosted by Gunsteel rocks and have a combined geologic inventory exceeding 50 million metric tons, Canada Zinc said.

The assay results at Cardiac Creek included 12.13 meters, or 39.4 feet, grading 10.17 percent zinc, 1.75 percent lead, and 12.45 g/t silver. Another interval of 10.35 meters, or 33.6 feet, graded 12.72 percent zinc, 2.04 percent lead and 14.45 g/t silver.

Four of the reported holes are up-dip of previously completed holes and confirm that the deposit continues for about 100 to 115 meters upwards from hole A-06-37A with 25.50 meters, or 82.9 feet, grading 10.08 percent combined zinc-lead), hole A-07-47 with 13.83 meters, or nearly 45 feet, grading 13.86 percent combined zinc-lead, and hole A-07-49 with 15.89 meters, or 51.6 feet, grading 13.65 percent combined zinc-lead. The fifth hole, A-08-55, extends the known mineralization about 100 meters along strike to the southeast from hole A-06-41.

The new information provided by these results indicates that the Cardiac Creek deposit is now at least 1 kilometer in length with a dip extent of about 600 meters.

Canada Zinc Metals President Jim Mustard said the junior met many milestones with its 2008 exploration program including expanding the deposit’s footprint with the first assay results.

“The step-out drilling towards the northwest has provided some new insights into the style and nature of the mineralization as we now believe this area represents a separate center of new mineralization on strike from the Cardiac Creek deposit,” Mustard said. “Also, the preliminary results of our regional efforts indicate several high potential targets that are hosted by the same geology as seen at Akie.”

Canada Zinc also completed 2 holes covering 1,114 meters, on the North Lead Anomaly about 2.3 kilometers, or nearly 1.5 miles, northwest of the nearest drill hole to intersect significant Cardiac Creek zinc-lead mineralization. This drilling was designed to further investigate the Gunsteel-formation-hosted massive sphalerite-galena-pyrite-barite mineralization encountered by Inmet in 1996 in hole A-96-24, which intersected nearly a meter, or more than 2 feet, grading 11.60 percent zinc and 9.05 percent lead and an associated 200-meter-by-1000 meter lead-zinc anomaly in soil. Assay results and further analysis of these holes are pending.

Canada Zinc also completed a regional exploration program from July to September between the Akie property and its Mount Alcock property, 70 kilometers, or 43.4 miles away. The work consisted of data compilation, prospecting, geologic mapping, and silt and soil sampling. The junior identified several new mineral occurrences and initial soil sample results indicate the presence of at least one large, previously unknown lead-zinc anomaly.