Trailbreaker commences Castle Rock exploration, British Columbia
Trailbreaker Resources Ltd. [TSXV-TBK] has begun the 2024 surficial exploration program at the company’s Castle Rock property on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
The program will consist of follow-up exploration on the results obtained during 2023 as well as reconnaissance exploration on unexplored ground.
During 2023, a 3-km gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly was defined along a magnetic lineament. This anomaly includes the Heart zone (historic chip sample of 2.0 g/t gold over 30 metres) as well as the newly discovered Kokummi and Watchtower zones. Interpretation of airborne magnetic data indicates that mineralization is associated with northwest-trending structures splaying off from the Kokummi granodioritic stock in the southwest property area. This interpretation suggests that much of the property with mineral potential has not yet been explored.
The 2024 exploration program will consist of approximately 400 soil geochemical samples combined with prospecting of the Watchtower and Kokummi zones, in an effort to expand and define the geochemical signature.
Reconnaissance exploration will also be conducted on unexplored ground along trend to the northwest, as well as on the Flan zone. The Flan zone includes a historic showing that has returned assays of up to 135 g/t gold in boulders. Exploration in 2023 confirmed high-grade gold mineralization, with assays up to 42.1 g/t gold and 1.93% copper. As well, basalt-hosted semi-massive pyrite-chalcopyrite-pyrrhotite mineralization sampled in outcrop returned assays up to 3.1 g/t Au. It is believed that this outcrop-hosted mineralization is associated with the float samples, and that higher-grade material is likely not exposed due to vegetation and/or till cover.
Daithi Mac Gearailt, president, said, “The Castle Rock property represents an exciting opportunity for new mineral discoveries in an area with little historic exploration. We are eager to follow up on the 2023 results and to continue advancing the project. There’s a lot of unexplored ground here with high potential for new discoveries.”
The Castle Rock property covers 3,108 hectares on northern Vancouver Island, approximately 70 km northwest of Campbell River. It was acquired by Trailbreaker in 2022 and consolidated through an option agreement. Trailbreaker conducted initial exploration assessment work in 2022 and followed up with a second surface exploration program in 2023.
The claims cover five BC Minfile occurrences located along a district-scale structure that is more than 5 km long, with newly identified gold plus or minus copper-enriched intrusions. These Minfile occurrences represent relatively new discoveries, mostly due to access created by recent logging activity.
Northern Vancouver Island is host to several large Cu-Au porphyry deposits including Northisle Copper and Gold’s Hushamu deposit (inferred resource of 5.57 million ounces gold equivalent), and BHP Billiton’s past-producing Island copper porphyry copper deposit (produced over 2.7 billion pounds Cu and over 1.0 million ounces Au).
At the Castle Rock property, gold is dominantly hosted by Jurassic granodiorite dikes which have been emplaced along a regional-scale fault zone separating Lower to Middle Triassic Daonella bed sedimentary rocks from Upper Triassic Karmutsen formation basalts.