Goldcliff’s 15 Ounces Gold Per Tonne
By Eric Pratt
Goldcliff Resources (TSX.V:GCN) assayed a trenching sample from its 100% owned Panorama Ridge project that returned a value of over 15 ounces per tonne of gold. The bonanza grade sample was assayed twice to confirm the result, which has validated the company’s theory that there would be high grade zones encountered throughout broadly disseminated lower grade host rock.
In the Hedley gold camp, the gold mineralization occurs in altered (skarn) sedimentary beds.
At Panorama Ridge,very little of the gold mineralization is visible native gold, even in the Bonanza Trench intercept. In order to have these bonanza gold grades, a gold-telluride compound mineral is thought to be related to the high-grade gold values. Goldcliff is researching the mineralogical possibilities to identify the mineral that is attributed to the high-grade gold values.
The Bonanza Trench, located at the south-western portion of the York-Viking zone, is a major gold discovery. The high-grade gold discovery at Panorama Ridge is comparable to the high-grade gold mineralization mined underground at the Nickel Plate Mine. The high-grade gold beds occur within an overall mineralized sequence that is up to 200 metres in thickness. The lower grade gold portions of this sequence were successfully mined by Mascot Gold Mines’ open pit operation.
The geological setting at Panorama Ridge is similar to these previously successful settings. Goldcliff has been targeting the bulk-tonnage potential of Panorama Ridge with success. The Bonanza Trench gold results confirm the high-grade potential of the property.
Meanwhile, trenching in the Nordic Zone at Panorama Ridge has expanded the area of previously determined mineralization by an additional 175 metres. The Nordic Zone and the York-Viking Zones are roughly 400 metres apart.
The Nordic Zone contains gold values averaging 1.30 to 2.32 g/t with higher grades ranging to 26.50 g/t.
Goldcliff will continue trenching throughout the 2008 exploration season, and will complete the rest of its 10,000 metre core drilling program.
Famous for gold since the first discovery in 1897, and once a thriving mining boomtown during the 1900s, Hedley was one of the great names in Canadian mining, and was named after Robert R. Hedley, manager of the Hall Smelter in Nelson, who had grubstaked many of the original prospectors.
Prospectors noticed coloured striations in the cliffs and recognized them as ore-bearing. Claims staked here were to expose one of the richest fractions in the history of mining in British Columbia. The mines were located high on mountaintops overlooking the town of Hedley below, and an aerial tramway 3 kilometres long had to be built to remove the ore.
The great northern railroad pushed through to Hedley in 1909, and the Nickel Plate mine continued to spew out rich ore at the rate of more than 50,000 ounces per year. The Mascot Fraction joined the action in 1936, to increase the total area production to more than 1.5 million ounces of gold and more than 4 million pounds of copper, significantly enriching the shareholders.
The Hedley Basin has had a long history of gold production (1904 to 1996) from the Hedley North mining district. During this period, 78,506,148 grams (2,524,313 ounces) of gold were produced from auriferous skarn deposits. The Nickel Plate and Hedley-Mascot mines produced more than 97 per cent of the gold from a single gold-skarn deposit (Nickel Plate deposit). Smaller production came from the French, Good Hope and Canty gold skarns. A small amount of gold production came from the Banbury quartz-carbonate veins (Maple Leaf and Pine Knot) located in Hedley Basin South.
The Mascot and Nickel Plate mines eventually fell under the ownership of Mascot Gold Mines Ltd, which traded from a start of $0.45 to a high of $20.63 on Tuesday August 4th, 1987.
Access to the Panorama Ridge property from Hedley is via Highway 3 by turning northeasterly onto the Old Hedley Road (Nickel Plate Mine Road) 2.5 kilometres east of Hedley. Alternatively, access from Keremeos or Penticton is via Highway 3A along the Green Mountain Road and the Apex Mountain Ski Hill Road. The Old Hedley Road public road passes through the northern portion of the property.
A number of logging and mining roads give excellent access to most areas of the property. The Winters Creek Forest Access road and their branches access the eastern and south eastern portions of the property. The West Cahill Forest Access Road accesses the western portion of the property (Skar prospect). The Good Hope Mine road accesses the south western portion of the property while the East Cahill Forest Access road accesses the Nordic, Spar, York and Slope prospects.
