from seabridge annual report... the deep bonaza tests may already be underway
Relocation of the fine crushing and grinding facilities from the Mitchell plant site to the Teigen site and, therefore,
conveying ore through the Mitchell Teigen tunnels instead of a slurry .
KSM – LOOKING FOR A GAME-CHANGER
At 2 .2 billion tonnes of proven and probable reserves, KSM is now one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world . Although we can continue to add additional reserves at similar grades at each of our four existing deposits, adding mine life beyond year 50 does not have much of an impact on project value . Instead, we will now begin to look for what could be a game-changer for the project ... a higher-grade core .
A growing body of evidence suggests that a large high-grade core similar to other world-class systems such as Ok Tedi, Bingham Canyon and Grasberg remains to be discovered on the KSM claims at a reasonable depth . During 2012 Seabridge plans to drill 11 deep holes on four distinct targets in search of a high-grade core that could have been the source to not only our Kerr, Sulphurets, Mitchell and Iron Cap porphyry zones but also the neighboring Snowfields and Brucejack deposits .
Porphyry cores are formed under higher temperature and pressure conditions in deeper parts of the system . They typically contain copper-rich minerals such as bornite or chalcocite and yield copper and gold grades at multiples of KSM’s reserves . World-class gold-copper porphyry districts usually exhibit links between the deeper, magmatic source ores upwards through transitional volcanic-hosted porphyries and skarn zones to replacement deposits including shallow vein systems . The six deposits in the KSM area display this vertically evolutionary relationship . Furthermore, all four porphyry zones at KSM remain open at depth, with geological signatures that vector downwards towards higher temperature and pressure conditions .
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SEABRIDGE GOLD 2011
Six years of intensive exploration and data analysis strongly suggest that the six deposits in the immediate area are distinct yet related mineralizing events, likely generated by a single magmatic source . The vertically-zoned mineral assemblages were then displaced laterally by regional thrust faulting . What is most encouraging to us is that the total displacement along these faults now appears to have been just a few hundred meters, not kilometers . The core should therefore be close to the existing KSM deposits at a reasonable depth . A magnetotelluric (“MT”) geophysical survey conducted last year has identified four distinct resistivity targets which could represent the core . Drilling is planned to test all four of these targets in 2012 . |
