Promising Results from Drilling at Seabridge Gold's Iskut Project

In This Article:

Hole 17 intersects 303m of 0.75 gpt gold and 0.10% copper

Hole 18 intersects 478m of 0.49 gpt gold and 0.13% copper

Hole 20 intersects 532m of 0.48 gpt gold and 0.10% copper

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 9, 2024) - Seabridge Gold (TSX:SEA) (NYSE:SA) announced today results from the first phase of this year's exploration drilling on its 100% owned Iskut project in BC's Golden triangle. Drilling has generated broad widths of important gold and copper and grades within a large potassic alteration system at the Snip North target. The scale and character of the mineralization suggest the likelihood of a nearby porphyry intrusive source feeding, and localized by, well mineralized tuffaceous stratigraphy several hundred meters thick.

Seabridge Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk commented: "Last year's new gold discoveries at Snip North gave us clear direction on where to focus our efforts this year. We're excited by the apparent size of the event we are exploring and the substantial metal content that we have found to date. Our team believes we are now in the process of unlocking the porphyry potential we had in mind when we acquired the Iskut project. We think this is a discovery in the making."

The remaining objective at Snip North is to encounter intrusive rock with the veining and alteration characteristic of a porphyry Cu-Au mineral deposit, containing copper and gold of potentially mineable grades. To date, we have intersected an intensive and extensive potassium alteration event hosted in a tuffaceous package of the Triassic Stuhini Formation containing important gold and copper concentrations. This mineralized package is several hundred meters thick with known dimensions of about 1.5 km by 500 meters. Potassic alteration consists of pervasive, and vein controlled, secondary biotite and orthoclase with associated magnetite. Frequent but not abundant Quartz-Biotite-Chalcopyrite veins (B-style veins) cut this unit with localized zones of abundant disseminated chalcopyrite.

Our original interpretation of the broadly potassium-altered rocks was that we had intersected a micro-crystalline porphyritic intrusion with localized foliation and discrete intervals of thermally metamorphosed siltstone and sandstone. Aided by initial thin section petrographic analysis, we now conclude that we have encountered a series of ash tuff eruptions with locally preserved flow-top or flow-bottom breccia intervals and occasionally preserved flow banding.

Key observations with favorable implications for a potentially robust Cu-Au porphyry source:

  • Extensive potassic alteration would most likely have occurred proximal to a magmatic hydrothermal event generated by a porphyritic intrusion.

  • Sizeable magmatic fluid volumes were needed to account for the scale of the potassic alteration, requiring substantial energy and suggesting a large and nearby intrusive source.

  • The expected role of chemically reactive tuffaceous rocks supports the likelihood that metal concentrations would not have been displaced significantly from the source intrusion.