Scottie Resources Corp. (TSX-V:SCOT) has announced plans for a 15,000-metre (m) drill program on its flagship asset, the Scottie Gold Mine project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
The company said the drill program is planned to commence in late June 2022 and continue into the fall using three diamond drill rigs. Approximately 12,000m will test the Blueberry Contact zone, with the remaining metres allocated to the Scottie Gold Mine as well as ancillary early-stage targets.
The Blueberry Contact zone is located 2 kilometres (km) north-northeast of the 100% owned past-producing high-grade Scottie Gold Mine, and 35 km north of the town of Stewart, along the Granduc Road.
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"Since delivering the outstanding drill results from 2021 which unlocked the clear potential of the Blueberry Contact zone, our geological team has been diligently planning an ambitious follow-up drill program,” president and CEO Brad Rourke said in a statement.
"The focus of drilling at Blueberry will be shared between extending the strike length of the zone, infill between established zones of mineralization, and testing continuity of the structures to depth. We've also developed a number of other high-priority targets at the Scottie Gold Mine project that have the potential to significantly enhance the scale of the existing discoveries. We are excited to return to site and get the drills turning again,” he added.
Scottie said the drill program will commence in late June to early July, depending on whether snow in the area has melted, with three skid-based drills, two on the Blueberry Contact zone, and one testing other local high-priority targets.
In early August, the company said two of the drills will transition to fly drills and test targets around the Scottie Gold Mine, as well as other helicopter accessible sites. In September, the fly drills will transition back to being skid-based to follow up on results generated at the beginning of the season.
After making the Blueberry Contact Zone discovery in 2019, Scottie explained that its geology team developed a new geological model which transformed the Blueberry target from a single vein to a property scale structural feature. This model, which was tested throughout the 2021 field season, has helped define the architecture of the system, which links several widely spaced high-quality targets along a common structure.
It said testing during 2022 of well-developed targets will double the existing strike length of the system, potentially extending the zone to greater than 1,400m. Combining multiple geophysical data sets, extensive mapping and surficial sample data has allowed the team to extrapolate the structure beneath the historic lakebed, to generate high-confidence drill targets.
Drilling during 2019-2021 focused on drill testing beneath high-grade mineralization outcropping at surface. Due to overburden coverage along the contact zone, Scottie said multiple areas have no surficial expression, creating gaps in the drill density along the known structure. Short infill holes during 2022 will test these areas to connect the already established high-grade zones.
One of the deepest holes of 2021 (SR21-138) intersected 15.3 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 13.49m at a depth of 225m, and additional drilling will prioritize further extending mineralization at depth, the company said.
In addition to drilling, Scottie said it will be carrying out a high-resolution LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey, as well as ground-based EM (electromagnetic) surveys on the Scottie Gold Mine project, intending to further extend the Blueberry Contact zone to the south beneath the historic lakebed.
Detailed geological mapping and sampling will be conducted on a variety of gold and polymetallic targets on the company's greater than 25,000 hectare (ha) Cambria Project located adjacent to the town of Stewart in British Columbia.
The Cambria Project hosts multiple small past-producing silver-rich polymetallic mines and Scottie said this season's exploration work will be focused on developing drill targets to test and advance the property's potential.
Scottie owns a 100% interest in the high-grade, past-producing Scottie gold mine and Bow properties and has the option to purchase a 100% interest in Summit Lake claims which are contiguous with the Scottie gold mine property.
Scottie also owns 100% interest in the Georgia project, which contains the high-grade past-producing Georgia River mine, as well as the Cambria project properties and the Sulu property. Altogether, Scottie Resources holds more than 52,000 ha of mineral claims in the Stewart mining camp in the Golden Triangle.
The company's focus is on expanding the known mineralization around the past-producing mines while advancing near-mine high-grade gold targets, to deliver a potential resource.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com