Benchmark drills 3.05 metres of 57.65g/t AuEq at Cliff Creek, Lawyer’s Project, British Columbia
Benchmark Metals Inc. [BNCH-TSXV; BNCHF-OTCQX; A2JM2X-WKN] reported new results from infill drilling at the Cliff Creek Mid zone at its 100%-owned Lawyer’s Gold-Silver Project, northern British Columbia, including 3.05 metres core length of 56.65 g/t gold and 79.75 g/t silver or 57.65 g/t AuEq (gold equivalent) within 68.58 metres core length of 3.07 g/t gold and 11.72 g/t silver or 3.22 g/t AuEq in drill hole 21CCRC020.
Infill drilling on the east side of the Cliff Creek Mid zone intersected near-surface high-grade and bulk tonnage mineralization in a portion of the Mid zone that was thought to be weakly to modestly mineralized based upon intermittently sampled historical drilling. These results have the potential to add significant, higher grade gold and silver ounces in an updated mineral resource estimate. Benchmark’s flagship Lawyers gold-silver project is located within a road accessible region of the prolific Golden Horseshoe area of north-central British Columbia.
John Williamson, CEO, commented: “The Cliff Creek Mid zone is now not only expanding at depth but also to the east with higher grade gold and silver mineralization. The new gold-silver mineralization begins near surface and was previously unrecognized in this area. This type of near surface higher grade mineralization will have a positive impact on the preliminary economic analysis (PEA) by delivering early year’s material in the production schedule. Benchmark has planned additional diamond drilling to focus on expanding this zone.”
Similar to the recently announced discovery of shallow high-grade and bulk tonnage mineralization in the connector zone, this discovery indicates a number of advantages, including conversion of previously modelled waste in the resource model to mineralized domains; the ability to expand the pit shells as the resource grows; and near-surface high-grade mineralization generates flexibility and potential for higher grade starter pits.
These new results are defining strong continuity of gold and silver mineralization over 50 metres and the system remains open along strike. A number of new drill holes have been planned to follow-up on this zone looking to extend it along strike to the northwest and southeast.
The Lawyer’s project consists of three mineralized deposits that remain open for expansion, in addition to more than 20 new target areas along the 20-km trend.