Thesis Gold Inc (CVE:TAU) (FRA:011) is about to embark on a 20,000 metre (m) drill program at its underexplored Ranch Gold project.
Proactive recently caught up with CEO Ewan Webster to find out more about the property, its potential, and its location in the famous 'Golden Horseshoe' region of British Columbia. Here's what he said:
Proactive: Please can you give a brief history of the company?
Ewan Webster: Thesis Gold acquired a 100% interest in the Ranch Gold Project and began trading on the TSX.V in October of 2020, and the initial financing raised $6 Million with strong institutional support. In June of 2021, we raised a further $18.4 million, enabling us to accelerate our exploration plans, which include an extensive, 20,000-metre, multi-phase drill program that is about to commence any day now.
For those who may not know, what is the so-called 'Golden Triangle' area in British Columbia and what is its mining history?
The Golden Triangle is an incredibly well-endowed mining and exploration region that stretches from Atlin in northern British Columbia near the Yukon border to Kitsault, just southeast of Stewart, British Columbia. The region hosts many prolific deposits and mines, including Eskay Creek, KSM, and Brucejack. What ultimately makes the region so prolific is the geology. The Golden Triangle covers only a small portion of the metal-rich Stikine terrane – a large volcanic island arc-related assemblage of rocks formed by significant magmatism during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. This magmatism is thought to be largely responsible for the development of the significant epithermal and porphyry deposits of the terrane. Subsequent uplift and erosion exposed an arc of mineralization, much vaster than the region represented by the Golden Triangle, this is where the "Golden Horseshoe" concept comes into focus!
Within this exposed 'horseshoe' of the Stikine terrane, many prolific deposits have been discovered. On the eastern flank of the Horseshoe lies the Toodoggone district with a rich mining history that includes numerous high-grade epithermal Au-Ag mines and Cu-Au porphyry mines. Despite the Toodoggone sharing many of the same characteristics as the Golden Triangle, recent exploration successes in the Golden Triangle have overshadowed the Toodoggone Region's mineralization potential. More recent research, mapping projects, and new geological interpretations have led to discoveries such as Benchmark Metals Lawyers project. The numerous such discoveries in the area are starting to garner considerable investor attention and give the Toodoggone the recognition it deserves.
Can you tell us a little more about your Ranch gold project, its location, and what excites you about it?
The Ranch Gold project spans 178 square kilometres (km) of some of the most prospective ground in the Toodoggone region of north-central British Columbia. The project is situated about 300 km due north of Smithers in a road-accessible portion of this proven and profitable mining jurisdiction.
Since 1972, at least 17 operators have conducted a significant amount of work on the project, leading to more than 20 known near-surface, high-sulphidation epithermal gold deposits and prospects. The project has seen over 35,000 metres of shallow diamond drilling with some incredible highlights, including 29.90 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 25.60 metres. In addition, limited historical production in the early 1990s produced 10,000 ounces of gold at 9.2 g/t gold from small open-pit operations. Over the last 30 years, however, there has been very little work done on the property.
What excites me the most about the project is that 90% of the historic drilling does not extend further than 100 metres down, so they barely scratched the surface. All of the known zones remain open. We also now understand that an underlying porphyry source environment typically feeds high-sulphidation mineralization, so there is significant blue-sky potential. Additionally, most of the historical work was focused on a 25 square km area at the centre of the project, and 90% of the land package is underexplored, so there is significant discovery potential outside of the known mineralized zones.
Can you give us more detail about the 20,000 metre multi-phase drill program and what you hope to achieve from the work?
The first phase of the drill program will be confirmatory drilling designed to test the known zones of mineralization and provide some insight into the mineralization style, alteration, structure, and lithology. This initial drilling is particularly important to us as none of the historical drill core was kept and will allow the historical drilling to be used in any future resource estimates. The second phase of the program focuses on zone expansion, both at depth and along strike. The third and largest phase will test numerous new targets.
What other newsflow might investors expect in the near term?
Investors can expect newsflow every 7-10 days going forward as our drill program is about to commence, and drill results will be released regularly over the coming months. Our extensive field program is well underway, and there will be regular news flow on this from now into the late fall covering all aspects of the program, including ground magnetics, high-resolution IP surveys, an airborne geophysical survey, bedrock and alteration mapping, and a sizeable soil and rock sampling program.
Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com