Big Gold Discovery
Summary
The Big Gold was a minor Teuton property until the discovery of a large alteration zone in 2015. The dimensions of the property have been changed to encapsulate part of the former Eskay Rift property and the southwestern portions of the Orion property (see map).
The alteration zone, consisting of intense shearing and sericitization, is defined for at least 1km in a north-south direction. Within this broad package of altered rocks, several sub-zones consisting of quartz sericite schists have been discovered. One of these sub-zones is gold-bearing. Many others remain to be sampled.
A property wide rock geochem survey has been recommended, to be followed by drilling of select targets.
Regional Setting
The new, Big Gold alteration zone lies within the 2km corridor postulated by Jeff Kyba, regional geologist for British Columbia, as being prospective for the discovery of new deposits. The center of that corridor, lying on either side of a “red line” (contact between Stuhini and Hazelton rocks) is marked on the map. All of the major deposits presently being explored by Pretium Resources and Seabridge Gold are within the corridor.
Significantly, Pretium’s high-grade VOK gold deposit is situated within quartz sericite schists, surrounded by an envelope of lower-grade mineralization. The same situation could potentially exist at the Big Gold, but much more exploration work will have to be done to prove whether this thesis is correct.