KEMANO OVERVIEW
RECOMMENDED WORK:
711 hectares (potential for growth)
DEPOSIT MODEL:
Epithermal Gold
EXPLORATION STAGE:
Greenfields
LOCATION & INFRASTRUCTURE:
The property has remained under-explored due to its remote location on coastal British Columbia. It is land locked with no logging road networks connecting to the mainland highways. The property can be accessed via a 15 km logging road commencing at the historic town site of Kamano. Kamano now hosts a 900 MW hydraulic powerplant operated by Rio Tinto and is only accessible by boat from Kitimat (90 km north). The property can easily be reached via helicopter based from Kitimat or Houston, BC. Mainland logging roads provide vehicle accessible staging points as close as 20 km away from the property.
GEOLOGICAL SETTING:
The property straddles the regional-scale Coast Plutonic Complex - Intermontane belt boundary that is marked by a thrust complex of middle to Late Cretaceous age (Sandifer Fault Zone). Gold is confined to pyritic quartz veins hosted in sheared greenstone.
EXPLORATION HIGHLIGHTS:
Gold was only first discovered in the area in 1952 during the construction of the Kamano Power Plant. A high-grade quartz vein assaying up to 6 oz/ton Au was outlined on the Sandifer Ridge just 5 km north-west of BC Mineral Properties' Kamano Project. This vein is known as the Smith-Nash vein and was sporadically examined through the 1960s and 70s with a crude resource development of 117,000 tons grading 0.92 oz/ton. Sporadic exploration remained focused on the Smith-Nash vein until 1987 when exploration efforts turned to the south-side of the Seekwyakin Creek valley (Kamano Project).
In 1987 numerous bonanza-grade quartz veins hosted in shear zones like the Smith-Nash vein were quickly outlined over a 4-kilometer northeast – southwest corridor. Grab samples returned assays up to 4 oz/ton and hand trenching returned up to 51.22 g/t Au over 2.1 meters and 19.41 g/t Au over 4 meters. Refer to the overview map above for additional gold results.
This area was primarily held and work by a single owner for 3 decades with no significant modern day exploration approach applied to the property.
RECOMENDED WORK:
A phase 1 robust tight-spaced soil geochemical survey should be completed over the entirety of the property in an effort to outline the main mineralized trends that could be buried by glacial till that inundate 50% of the property. In addition to the geochemical survey, an airborne magnetic and LIDAR survey should be completed. These surveys are proven geophysical methods of delineating fault/shear zones which may be associated with gold mineralization.
A phase 2 detailed prospecting and geological mapping program should follow up on soil anomalies.
A phase 3 RC drill program should test several of the historic and (ideally) newly identified showings/zones at depth. The historic bonanza gold grades allow for relatively narrow zones to be economic and thus several smaller but high-grade deposits over the 4 km mineralized trend could add up to a large overall resource.
Due to the remote location, very limited surface exploration has been conducted in this region of BC, especially outside of the currently staked claim blocks. The area has potential for a large, regional-scale property play which would include combining the Kamano property, Smith-Nash Vein property, and newly staked claims.
To date, only 2 drill holes have tested the Smith-Nash vein, and because the vein was discovered in the 1950s the area lacks "old-timer" exploration shafts and adits that would be commonplace had the discovery occurred 50 years prior.