Thesis Gold drills 14.87 g/t gold over 6.27 metres at Ranch, British Columbia
Thesis Gold Inc. [TSXV-TAU; OTCQX-THSGF; WKN-A3EP87] reported high-grade assay result, British Columbias from drilling below the historically mined BV zone at the 100%-owned, road-accessible Ranch gold project in the Toodoggone mining district of northern British Columbia.
Highlights: 23BVDD001 intersected 6.27 metres (core length) of 14.87 g/t gold, including 2.31 metres of 32.51 g/t gold.
Initial drill results confirm the continuation of high-grade material along the 180-metre long historical BV trench, which constituted approximately 80% of the tonnes extracted from Ranch in 1991 to supplement production at the historical Lawyers gold mine.
Rock samples collected during the 2023 field season indicate that gold mineralization within the larger BV zone is present along a 400-metre corridor that remains open: One grab sample from a quartz-barite vein at the northwest (NW) end of the historical trench returned 77.80 g/t gold. Five grab samples of silicified andesite from south of the BV trench returned between 1.59 g/t and 29.60 g/t gold.
Alteration, high-grade mineralization and pathfinder elements in soil corroborate the possibility for continued discovery along the greater-than-one-kilometre-long, northwest-southeast-oriented BV-Ring trend.
Dr. Ewan Webster, president and CEO, commented: “The high-grade, near-surface results from the BV zone align seamlessly with our corporate strategy at Ranch. Our primary focus is to complete our 30,000-metre program, aimed at establishing a maiden resource and emphasizing high-grade zones with potential for early mining. Similar to other mineralized zones within Ranch, our ongoing exploration efforts around the BV zone strongly suggest its integration into a much-larger mineralized trend, potentially exceeding a one km strike length. These results provide a robust foundation for this emerging trend, reaffirming our confidence in the Ranch project’s capacity to significantly contribute to our overarching strategy of building a unified Toodoggone district. This strategy leverages the combined potential of our assets to their fullest extent.”
Prior to mining, historical exploration throughout the 1980s culminated in over 1,000 metres of trenching and over 2,200 metres of diamond drilling which targeted and defined zones of high-grade mineralization at BV. A historical estimate from Gemcom Mine Services in 1988 estimated the zone surrounding the BV trench contained 65,640 metric tonnes of material grading 9.81 g/t gold using a cut-off grade of 3.5 g/t gold. The BV trench was one of three areas at the Ranch project brought to production by Cheni Gold Mines Inc. in 1991. The material extracted from BV made up approximately 80 per cent of the 40,000 tonnes extracted from Ranch in 1991 to augment production at the historical Lawyers gold mine.
A 10-hole drill program was designed to test the continuity and expansion potential of mineralization both along strike and at depth beyond the historical BV trench. The first three drill holes in this release were spaced along the length of the trench, demonstrating that mineralized material is present along a minimum 140 metres strike length and at least 15 metres below the bottom of the trench, with mineralization remaining open.
During the summer of 2023, field crews spent time mapping and sampling at the BV and Ring zones; these areas were the subject of historical work but had never been followed up by modern exploration.
South of the BV trench, company geologists confirmed the presence of an approximately 1.5 km2 zone of silica alteration. Andesite samples returned between 1.59 and 29.6 g/t gold, all of which contained barite, either as veinlets or open-space filling in altered rocks. The highest-grade sample collected from the southern zone returned 32.8 g/t gold from a massive barite vein.
The Ring zone lies roughly 650 metres southeast of BV, and comprises a broad, approximately 0.4 km2 footprint of high-sulphidation-style alteration that is seen elsewhere on the Ranch property.
Thesis Gold, following its strategic merger with Benchmark Metals, is unlocking the combined potential of the Ranch and Lawyers gold-silver projects in the Toodoggone mining district of north-central British Columbia. The 2022 preliminary economic assessment for the Lawyers project alone projected an open-pit mining operation that would yield 163,000 gold equivalent ounces annually over a 12-year span.
The company is now evaluating the integration of the Ranch project, aiming to enhance these figures and bolster the overall potential. Central to this ambition is the 50,000-metre drill program, designed to define the high-grade underground resource at Lawyers and augment the near-surface, high-grade deposits at Ranch. The company’s road map includes the release of a global company resource estimate by the second quarter of 2024, followed by an updated preliminary economic assessment in Q3 2024.