With the recent significant land expansion at Crestview Exploration Inc's (CSE:CRS) Tuscarora complex, the company acclaims it holds a “golden (and silver) opportunity” in prolific northern Nevada.
The Tuscarora Complex comprises three properties brought to close proximity with recent claim-staking, for a total of 260 claims spanning almost 5,000 acres situated in the Tuscarora Mountains of Elko County, near the historic Tuscarora mining town and north of the prominent Carlin Trend.
“The Carlin Trend has produced about 100 million ounces of gold to date,” Crestview Exploration CEO Christopher Wensley told Proactive.
“The area south of Tuscarora near Carlin known as the ‘the Carlin Complex’ encompassing Goldstrike and other nearby mines actually has the highest concentration of gold deposits in North America.”
Notably, Crestview's Tuscarora Complex is surrounded on three sides by world-class gold and silver deposits, including Hecla Mining’s Midas mine, Barrick Gold’s Goldstrike operation, and First Majestic Silver’s Jerritt Canyon mine.
“We’re right in the middle of some serious production, big world-class stuff,” Wensley said.
Crestview’s properties in Nevada
The Tuscarora complex represents the amalgamation of the previously disconnected Rock Creek, Divide, and Falcon projects. Crestview’s initial and flagship asset is the Rock Creek project. Acquired by the company in 2017, Rock Creek is a volcanic and meta-sedimentary rock-hosted, epithermal gold-silver prospect with additional targets envisioned at depth.
Encouraged by results at Rock Creek, Crestview has strategically expanded in the area with the acquisition of the nearby Divide prospect in April 2020 and the Falcon prospect in September 2022.
Similar historical prospecting has occurred at all three properties, and some historic mining was conducted at Divide and Falcon. The historic Falcon Mine, which was active from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, reported production averaging 100 ounces per ton of silver, though the total silver production from the operation is unknown, Crestview said.
Wensley, who has 40 years of business and management experience across raising capital, property acquisition, exploration, and development, joined Crestview as CEO in 2021, after previously acting as a consultant for the company.
Since then, the company has increased the number of claims it holds in the Rock Creek area from 93 to 260; completed property-wide sampling, mapping and geophysical investigation at Rock Creek; and successfully raised funds to complete these activities in an admittedly difficult financial market.
Wensley said one of Crestview’s primary objectives has been to consolidate its land position in the Tuscarora Mountains to build up a solid and secure footprint in the area.
“We’ve been able to expand the Divide claims to within one claim block of Rock Creek, so they’re nearly connected,” he said.
“We are in a good position to make a discovery with our meaningful and significant land position.”
Crestview also controls the Cimarron gold prospect, comprising 31 unpatented lode claims around the historic San Antonio mine, located in the northern portion of the San Antonio Mountain Range in Nye County, Nevada. The Cimarron prospect is targeting epithermal gold-silver mineralization in a volcanic host sequence.
In 2021, Crestview conducted a core drill program to validate historic records from the Cimarron property and begin testing deeper zones for mineralization, with every hole intercepting anomalous gold mineralization.
Two of the drill holes, SA-01 and SA-03, intercepted significant zones of economic gold mineralization at or near the surface.
2023 exploration plans
In tandem with consolidating its land package at the Tuscarora Complex, Crestview has continued exploring its properties to build on historic data on the area.
Over the past year, the company has carried out extensive sampling and mapping, including the collection of 118 samples from across the Rock Creek property that were submitted for precious metal and trace element geochemical testing and a Hybrid-Source Audio Magnetotellurics (HSAMT) survey at the Rock Creek and Falcon prospects.
“It’s been an expansive, comprehensive and thorough undertaking,” Wensley told Proactive.
“Now we’re satisfied we’ve covered the entirety of the property, and what we’ve discovered is that mineralization occurs in N-S and approximately N-S structures that run across the entire length of the property.”
Wensley said nearly every sample taken during the surface program returned mineralization ranging from anomalous to economic grades.
From the surface sampling program at Rock Creek, Crestview reported widespread anomalous gold and silver, including nine samples with greater than 30 grams per ton (g/t) of silver, including a sample of 121 g/t of silver, and 32 samples with greater than 0.1 g/t of gold, including two samples with greater than 0.5 g/t of gold.
Through its exploration work, Crestview has narrowed down targets for its upcoming drill program at its Rock Creek and Divide properties. Wensley said that the company wants to carry out 8,000-to-12,000 feet of drilling at Rock Creek, and another 2,000-to-3,000 feet at Divide this summer.
“We’ve identified a dozen or so high-priority targets, and we will be putting out further details on that in the near future,” he said.
Additional work planned at Crestview’s Tuscarora properties includes detailed structural and alteration mapping at Falcon, extensive surface sampling at Falcon, and UAV topographical survey and photography.
Following its first drill program at Cimarron, the company intends to carry out additional mapping and surface sampling; additional drilling in the historic resource area as well as step-out holes targeting expansion; and exploration drilling in prospective areas outside the historic resource, leading to a 43-101 compliant resource estimate utilizing both Crestview’s drill results and historic records.
“With all of the geotechnical and geological work that we’ve done, we’ve checked off a lot of boxes,” Wensley said.
“We’re sitting on a fantastic property in north-central Nevada and we can’t wait to get going on the next phase of exploration, which is drilling.”
Contact the author at emily.jarvie@proactiveinvestors.com
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