The Gilnockie project
The Gilnockie project covers a package of land in southeastern British Columbia that is prospective for sedimentary-hosted copper deposits. The area is principally subdued, with rounded, forested mountains. A large network of roads and trails create excellent access due to widespread logging activity over the last three decades.
The property lies within the Purcell anticlinorium, a gently north-plunging structure that is cored by Paleoproterozoic sedimentary and minor volcanic rocks of the Purcell Supergroup. Belt-Purcell rocks host a variety of base-metal mineralization styles genetically related to basin evolution and deformation, with principal deposit types including the lead–zinc–silver sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) mineralization at the Sullivan Mine (Kimberley, British Columbia), certain mesothermal lead–zinc–silver veins of the Coeur d’Alene district, Idaho, deposits of the Idaho cobalt belt (e. g., Blackbird), sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver deposits at Spar Lake, Montanore, and Rock Creek, Montana, and the copper–cobalt–silver mineralization at Black Butte (Sheep Creek) in the Helena embayment, Montana.
Sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver mineralization is common in the Middle Creston strata that lie within the property is a correlative lithostratigraphic unit of the Ravalli Group of western Montana. The Ravalli Group hosts the largest sediment-hosted stratiform copper-silver deposits of the Belt-Purcell Supergroup. Sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits are important sources of copper, cobalt, and silver and, in recent years, have accounted for 15 to 23% of global copper production, second only to porphyry copper and related deposits.
Previous work programs within the property and surrounding area identify areas of anomalous geochemistry (rock, soils, silts), and favorable geology (lithologies, alteration, faults, folds). The diamond drilling confirmed mineralization with vertical mineral zoning where copper was vertically zoned with pyrite and galena; bornite, chalcocite, chalcopyrite, and copper oxides in abundance. Advanced studies in academia confirmed simultaneous mineralization within the property and at Spar Lake, Montanore, and Rock Creek, Montana, developed by Hecla, which makes it a potential target area for copper deposits on a global scale.
