Strategic Metals Highlights the CD Copper-Gold Porphyry Target, Southwestern Yukon
In This Article:
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Strong soil geochemical anomaly suggests the presence of a robust porphyry system
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Magnetic high flanked by chargeability highs defines compelling drill targets
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Fully permitted for a large-scale drill program
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 9, 2024 / Strategic Metals Ltd. (TSXV:SMD) ("Strategic" or the "Company") is pleased to report results from a recently completed reinterpretation of geological, geophysical and geochemical data from its wholly owned CD Project ("CD" or the "Project"), in southwestern Yukon. The Project lies within the Dawson Range Gold Belt, a metallogenic province that hosts several major deposits including Western Copper and Gold Corporation's Casino porphyry copper-gold deposit (Figure 1), 85 km to the northwest; Newmont Corporation's Coffee gold deposit, 120 km to the northwest; and Rockhaven Resources' Klaza epithermal gold-silver deposit, 20 km to the east.
Mineralization in the belt is commonly associated with Late Cretaceous intrusions - particularly small plugs and breccia bodies of the Late Cretaceous Casino Suite. At CD, porphyry-style veining and alteration have been identified in an area underlain by a quartz diorite porphyry stock and breccia body of Late Cretaceous age, which is expressed on surface by a 1,200 m by 400 m area of highly anomalous gold- (up to 1,270 ppb) and copper-in-soil (up to 1,485 ppm) geochemistry (figures 2 and 3). This very strong geochemical anomaly lies within an elongated, east-west oriented magnetic feature. Recent 3D reinterpretation of magnetic and induced polarization geophysical data demonstrates that a conspicuous magnetic high in eastern part of the anomaly coincides with a resistivity low, flanked by chargeability highs. These geophysical features, which are situated at shallow depths, are characteristic of chargeable sulphide minerals around a porphyry core.
The project area covers moderate rolling hills and lies within a variably glaciated area of the Yukon, at the margin of the unglaciated Yukon Plateau. The porphyry occurrence at CD, referred to as the Maloney Zone, was identified soon after the Casino deposit was discovered in the late 1960s. Early exploration efforts focussed on an area of strong copper-in-soil geochemistry in the lower part of a west-facing valley. In 1976, six shallow diamond drill holes circumscribed the peak copper soil geochemistry but failed to test the area of highest gold geochemistry or the core of the geophysical target. The Company believes that when the sulphide minerals were weathered, copper was leached and transported by groundwater flux and then reprecipitated to the present location of the copper-in-soil anomaly, leaving behind a residual, in-situ gold-in-soil anomaly. This scenario has been observed at the Casino deposit, where there is a well-developed, gold-enriched leached cap and an underlying copper-enriched supergene zone that includes an area downstream of the deposit where copper-bearing springs come to surface. Significantly, at CD, the area of peak gold-in-soil response is cored by the conspicuous magnetic high, coincident resistivity low and flanking chargeability highs described above (figure 3).