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Seabridge Discovers High Grade Epithermal Gold Deposit at KSM ProjectNew Discovery Geochemically Similar to Neighboring Brucejack MineralizationPress Release: Seabridge Gold Inc. – 1 hour 40 minutes ago
TORONTO, CANADA--(Marketwire - Sept. 5, 2012) - Seabridge Gold ( SEA.TO)( SA) announced today that exploration drilling this summer on its 100%-owned KSM Project in northwestern British Columbia has discovered an epithermal style of gold occurrence which contains significant widths of higher gold grades including narrow veins with the highest gold grades found at the project to date.
KSM has proven and probable reserves totaling 38.2 million ounces of gold and 10 billion pounds of copper (see table below) in four very large deposits which have an average grade of 0.55 grams per tonne of gold, 0.21% copper and 2.74 grams per tonne of silver. The new discovery has intercepts of gold and silver grades that are substantially higher. Drill hole C-12-01 encountered epithermal style mineralization in an entirely new zone at shallow depth and low elevation, called the Camp zone. This hole returned two 2 meter intercepts grading above 8 grams of gold per tonne (greater than 0.25 ounces of gold per tonne). A second hole, C-12-02, drilled 400 meters southeast of C-12-01, intersected 22.0 meters averaging 8.94 grams per tonne of gold and 41.6 grams per tonne of silver. This hole returned a 2 meter intercept of 66.7 grams of gold per tonne (more than 2 ounces per tonne) and 287 grams per tonne of silver (nearly 10 ounces per tonne). A third hole into this zone, C-12-03 drilled 900 meters to the northeast of C-12-02, returned 98.7 meters at an average gold grade of 2.11 grams per tonne including 17.7 meters averaging 4.41 grams per tonne of gold and an additional 6.0 meter intercept averaging 6.24 grams of gold per tonne. (see assay table and drill hole location map below).
Seabridge Gold CEO Rudi Fronk said the new discovery appears to have the potential to make a significant contribution to KSM's already robust economics. "Obviously, we are at a very early stage in the discovery process. However, the Camp zone is readily accessible and has the highest gold grades found to date. All three holes into this new zone found excellent gold values," he said.
"This is not the target we were looking for in this year's program...we were exploring to find a high grade, copper-rich core and that work continues with encouraging results. Our original assumption was that neighboring Pretium Gold had the higher grade, epithermal (top) portion of the very large gold-copper porphyry system we see at KSM and that our property would probably host the high grade copper core of the entire complex at depth. The new Camp zone appears to be part of an epithermal system with chemistry similar to that found nearby at Pretium's extraordinary Brucejack deposit. We intend to complete another six holes into the Camp zone this drill season to establish the orientation of this new discovery. At the same time, we continue to pursue several promising copper core zone targets. An additional exploration drill rig has been mobilized to site, bringing the total to three," Fronk said.
Assay results from the first three holes drilled this year at the Camp zone are as follows:
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Total Gold Grade Silver Grade
Depth From To Thickness (grams per (grams per
Hole ID (meters) (meters) (meters) (meters) tonne) tonne)
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C-12-01 200.0 274.0 74.0 0.85 2.5
405.0 220.0 222.0 2.0 8.36 5.1
Includes 270.0 272.0 2.0 8.60 31.6
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C-12-02 114.0 136.0 22.0 8.94 41.6
363.0 114.0 116.0 2.0 23.10 90.4
Includes 128.0 130.0 2.0 66.70 287.0
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C-12-03 310.0
Includes 37.2 39.0 1.8 7.82 29.6
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151.3 250.0 98.7 2.11 2.5
151.3 169.0 17.7 4.41 5.2
196.0 202.0 6.0 6.24 8.9
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262.0 280.0 18.0 2.02 2.4
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Additional drilling will be required to ascertain the orientation of the mineralization within the Camp zone. Accordingly, the true widths of the mineralization in the table above may prove to be less than reported.
The Camp zone is in the Sulphurets Valley, covered by a relatively thin layer of glacial till. The initial interpretation is that the host units are intermediate tuffaceous volcanic rocks of the Hazelton Group, but work continues to better understand this stratigraphy. Brittle deformation of these rocks in the form of crack-seal style veins and extensively disseminated fine grain sulfide minerals containing gold have been observed. Quartz-carbonate and quartz-adularia veins are present in the gold-bearing zones, with vein and disseminated sphalerite, galena, barite and carbonate minerals. Geochemically, the zone is depleted in copper, elevated in zinc and lead with a variable but generally low silver-to-gold ratio. Textural, mineralogical and chemical characteristics are consistent with a low-sulfidation epithermal system but additional results will help refine this interpretation.
To view the map associated with this press release, please visit the following link:http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/SEA0409_Map.jpg.
Exploration activities at KSM are being conducted by Seabridge personnel under the supervision of William E. Threlkeld, Senior Vice President of Seabridge and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Threlkeld has reviewed and approved this news release. In order to verify the test data an ongoing and rigorous quality control/quality assurance protocol is being employed during the 2012 program including blank and reference standards in every batch of assays. Cross-check analyses are being conducted at a second external laboratory on 10% of the samples. Samples are being assayed using fire assay atomic adsorption methods for gold and total digestion ICP methods for other elements. |
