Mining News: Northern Neighbors: KSM drilling discovers new copper-gold zone

Seabridge Gold Inc. Oct. 18 reported that one hole drilled this summer successfully found the depth extension of the higher grade core of the Iron Cap zone while also discovering a previously unknown deposit with initial gold and copper grades among the best drilled so far at the KSM project in northwestern British Columbia. Hole IC-16-62 was collared well north of previous drilling in an area covered by rubble and ice which had prevented surface mapping and geophysical surveys. The hole targeted the Iron Cap Lower zone about 400 meters below an intersection in a 2014 hole, IC-14-59, that cut 593 meters of 1.14 grams per metric ton gold, 0.37 percent copper and 3.7 g/t silver. The new hole confirmed the extension of the Iron Cap Lower zone over an interval of 556 meters at 0.83 g/t gold, 0.24 percent copper and 4.4 g/t silver. A distinct and separate zone was intercepted shallower in hole 16-62, returning 61 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold, 0.95 percent copper and 4.1 g/t silver. Early indications are that the new discovery could represent a new core zone with a potentially positive impact on the project. The newly discovered zone is being evaluated for additional drilling in 2017. “Although we have only one hole into it, this new discovery has all the same hallmarks that proved to be relevant in the first holes drilled into Deep Kerr and Lower Iron Cap and which led us to pursue these deposits. Our exploration team thinks this discovery could be the elusive Mitchell North deposit which they have hypothesized since 2009,” said Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk.

-Shane Lasley