Summary
The Treaty Creek property adjoins directly northeast of Seabridge Gold’s KSM gold-copper property and shares much the same geology. Starting in 1983, the property was successively built up by staking open ground (except for the central Treaty claim which was purchased). In the intervening years it has been under option four times, most recently by American Creek Resources. Exploration work has uncovered several zones the most promising of which are the Copper Belle, GR2 and Eureka zones.
Seabridge’s KSM property has rapidly developed over the past five years, and is now host to Canada’s largest undeveloped resource of gold and copper. Present resources add up to 45 million ounces of gold and 11.7 billion pounds of copper in the measured and indicated categories. Inferred resources add additional gold and copper. These resources come from the Mitchell, Sulphurets, Kerr and Iron Cap deposits.
The Iron Cap deposit lies just 800m from the common boundary with Teuton’s Treaty Creek property and remains open in all directions. It’s 5.1 million ounces of gold and 1.67 billion pounds of copper (measured and indicated) were first defined in 2010 and Seabridge plans more work to expand this deposit during the 2011 field season.
Seabridge has also proposed two 19km long tunnels to be built mostly through the Treaty Creek property. They will connect the Mitchell zone with milling facilities staked by Seabridge on the northeast side of Treaty Creek. Negotiations with Seabridge for permission to build these tunnels is ongoing
Directly east of Seabridge’s giant Mitchell deposit lies the Snowfield zone of Pretium Resources. This deposit contains combined measured and indicated resources of 22.04 million ounces gold and 0.11% copper.
Teuton Resources is currently involved in litigation concerning American Creek’s involvement in the Treaty Creek property. Teuton is alleging, among other matters, that American Creek breached the option agreement and is no longer entitled to an interest in the property. If Teuton wins the litigation it will have a 100% interest in the property; if it loses, a 49% interest (or a 40% interest should American Creek take the property to feasibility).
As reported June 08,2012, Teuton Resources seeks to raise new defences to American Creek’s claims including allegations that the geoscientific data obtained by American Creek respecting the Treaty Creek property is unreliable. It should be noted that these are allegations only and have not been adjudicated upon by the Court on their merits.
Mineralization
The long corridor of bright, “red-thumb” gossans extends from the KSM and Snowfield-Brucejack properties of Seabridge Gold and Pretium Resources into the Treaty Creek property and continues therein for another 9 kilometres. At the center lies the very large (1 sq. km) Treaty Central gossan which is marked by native sulphur and alunite in its uppermost reaches.
Across the Treaty Glacier lies the Orpiment zone, so-called because of the patches of bright yellow orpiment found in places along its length. To the southwest, one finds the GR2, Copper Belle, Goat Trail, Konkin, AW and Southwest zones, all associated with the gossans.
Rocks from the Hazelton and Stuhini Groups that underlie the KSM and Snowfield-Brucejack properties trend northeast directly into Treaty Creek. Thrust faults, which are spatially related to the deposits in the KSM and Snowfield-Brucejack properties, also continue northeast into the Treaty Creek property and up to and including the Central Gossan (Eureka) area. In the Treaty Ridge area, similar geology to that which underlies the Eskay Creek property also occurs on the property (pillow basalts, bi-modal volcanics, pyjama beds).
Descriptions of the some of the main zones at Treaty Creek follow:
Copper Belle:
This area lying just northeast of the Goat Trail zone was only recently exposed by the melting of snow and ice. The Copper Belle target was first drilled in 2007 and subsequently followed up in 2008 (toward the southwest, parallel to the surface alteration (gossanous) zone). The sulphide and gold rich areas are found on surface and at depth and trend roughly NE, dipping steeply to the NW. Several NE-SW fault zones offset the mineralized zones. The best and most consistent gold values are found in chlorite-sericite-pyrite altered volcanic breccias. Lower and more discontinuous gold values are found in feldspathic sandstones interbedded with pink and green chlorite and K-feldspar altered andesitic ash tuffs, similar to the surface outcrops in the Goat Trail gossan. The volcanic breccias are found to the west of a regional NE-SW fault zone, and host the bulk of the gold mineralization in the Copper Belle zone. Copper values are also elevated in this host rock.
GR2
The GR2 target is located in the vicinity of the Copper Belle, at higher topographic and stratigraphic level. Marked structural and lithological control, textures in sulphide mineralization as well as very elevated concentration of pathfinder elements such as arsenic, antimony and manganese values indicates an epithermal system with features of the feeder zone of a Volcanogenic Massive Sulphides (VMS) style of mineralization. Three styles of mineralization have been interpreted in core. Stringers and veins composed chiefly of quartz and pink manganoan dolomite/rhodocrosite, and minor galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. These veins show breccia and crustiform textures, typical of deep, low-sulphidation epithermal mineralization, or a combination of both. The second style of mineralization is found as well bedded sulphides (pyrite) in black mudstones of turbiditic origin, which indicates the presence of exhalative sulphides and a reduced basin where deposition and preservation of sulphides exist. The third style of mineralization is found as a zone of coarse grained sulphides, locally up to 20m thick, showing intensive silicification. The strataboundcharacter of the zone indicates a possible lens of massive sulphide proximal to the venting zone, and not sinter as is typical of other epithermal systems. Elevated grades of gold and silver correlate with zinc and lead (sphalerite, galena and lead sulphosalts) in these zones, whereas gold is more commonly found in the fossilferous black mudstones-siltstones of turbiditic origin. Sulphide rich zones are characterized by the presence of massive galena and sphalerite, generally very corase grained, with variable amounts of silver sulphosalts and finely disseminated chalcopyrite. Pyrite is conspicuous within the phyllic (sericite-carbonate) altered host rock. The mineralized lenses and stringer-vein zones strike roughly northeast and dip steeply to the northwest.”
Eureka Zone
The Eureka zone lies along the southwest flank of the large Treaty Central Gossan. A large AeroTEM airborne anomaly shows evidence of a porphyry style mineralization with epithermal overprinting. The AeroTEM airborne survey indicates that the anomaly is located just beneath the main gossan in the Treaty Nunatak. Sulphide enrichment at depth and towards the center of the anomaly found in drill core and the lack of base metals in soils may indicate surface leaching and presence of the sulphide mineralization at depth (porphyry style with high grade Au-Ag epithermal overprinting).
Drilling of the Eureka zone has been challenging due to poor recovery and bad ground conditions.
Treaty Ridge Zone
The Treaty Ridge zone is a new target located in the eastern part of the property. It is characterized by the presence of a strong EM conductor in a mudstone formation on top of a bimodal volcanic sequence comprised of basalts and dacite-rhyolite (Mount Dilworth Formation) rocks of submarine origin. Drainages from this unit reported strong values of zinc and silver in silt samples. The age of the unit is coincident with the age of the nearby Eskay Creek deposit.
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