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 | Snip-Bronson Trend
Snip Down Dip Extension
Bug Lake Area
Gorge-Gregor Area
Bronson Slope
Snip-1 Claim
Snip North
Johnny Mountain
Photo Gallery
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 BACKGROUND 
 click to enlarge Two airstrips suitable for Hercules aircraft or equivalent service the Property. One occurs at 100m elevation at Bronson Airstrip, which is the old campsite of the closed Snip Gold Mine just north of the property. The second occurs in the alpine at 1100m elevation at the closed Johnny Mountain Gold Mine in the centre of the adjoining Iskut property. In recent years helicopters working for the mineral exploration industry out of Bob Quinn airstrip have been available for work in the area. This availability of helicopters is expected to continue in the 2006 field season. The Bronson Slope copper, gold, silver, molybdenum mineralization is considered to be a porphyry copper, gold deposit type. It was first investigated as a porphyry deposit in 1962 by Cominco, but largely ignored until 1993 when Skyline, which owned the property as part of its Johnny Mountain land package took it on as an exploration play under the leadership of Cliff Grandison, a former executive of Placer-Dome. Skyline initiated a pre-feasibility study during 1996 and 1997 based on 77 holes representing 14,800 metres of drilling. GEOLOGY The Bronson Slope Property is underlain by the Early Jurassic Red Bluff porphyry gold, copper, silver, molybdenum hydrothermal system that is dominated by an intense quartz-magnetite hematite stockwork that trends northwest along the south side of Bronson Creek valley. The image below provides an overview of the regional geology.  click to enlarge The Red Bluff porphyry is intrusive into Upper Triassic age feldspathic greywacke. A stockwork overprints and is intimately associated with the Red Bluff porphyry intrusion. The stockwork is composed of an intense network of veins. Drill intersections of 20 to +100 metres long are composed entirely of intersecting to sheeted sets of quartz, magnetite, hematite veins. Individual veins range from 0.5 to 10 cm in thickness. The quartz, magnetite, hematite stockwork is overprinted by quartz + pyrite + chalcopyrite +/- carbonate veins and by carbonate and pyrite veins. The total sulphide content in the quartz, pyrite assemblage is approximately 5%. The quartz, pyrite assemblage comprises less than 10% of the older quartz, magnetite, hematite veins. The quartz-pyrite veins/alteration are locally brecciated. Gold and copper grades reflect the distribution of the different veins and alteration types. Areas of quartz, magnetite, hematite veining with sparse or no pyrite, chalcopyrite or quartz, pyrite overprinting have low gold and copper grades. Higher copper and gold grades occur in quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite veins and alteration and in areas of abundant pyrite, chalcopyrite veining both inside the quartz, Fe-oxide stockwork and in adjacent greywacke. The greywacke is massive to crudely bedded. Individual graded beds may have sharp, scoured basal contacts and may contain siltstone or mudstone rip up clasts. A folded sequence of turbiditic feldspathic greywackes with subordinate inter-bedded siltstones, mudstones, volcanic conglomerate and rare carbonate lenses is intruded by the Red Bluff porphyry. The sequence is weakly to moderately metamorphosed (lower greenschist facies). Alteration ranges from weak to strong in the vicinity of mineral prospects. Pebble to cobble sized clasts of fine grained and porphyritic mafic to felsic volcanic rocks are present in coarser beds, and coupled with the common presence of angular to sub rounded plagioclase grains in greywacke units, imply a proximal volcanic source. These rocks are probably lateral equivalents of Stuhini Group strata exposed on Snippaker Ridge 4 km southeast of Bronson Slope, which contain Upper Triassic fossils. Early Jurassic felsic to intermediate volcanoclastic, pyroclastic and flow rocks that probably belong to the Lower Hazelton Group are exposed on Johnny Mountain. They are flat-lying to moderately tilted and unconformably overlie the greywacke sequence noted above. The sequences are separated by a flat lying to gently dipping regional unconformity exposed approximately one kilometre to the northeast of the Johnny Mountain Gold mine. The Bronson stock, also known as the Red Bluff Porphyry Intrusion, is a heterogeneous, medium-grained equigrangular plagioclase + clinopyroxene +/- amphibole phyric diorite. The stock lies north of the former producing Snip gold mine. A poorly constrained Late Triassic U-Pb zircon age date of between 197Ma and 225 Ma was obtained from a K feldspar + plagioclase phyric monzodiorite phase of this unit (Macdonald et al, 1992). Several small stocks, sills and dikes of unknown age and intermediate to mafic composition intrude the Bronson stock. Lamprophyre dykes of probable Jurassic age have been mapped at numerous locations on the property and in addition lower Jurassic feldspar porphyry dykes and Tertiary intrusive stocks have been noted. Basalt dykes, possibly correlative with Recent volcanism, have also been observed. The lower sequence is intruded by the Red Bluff porphyry stock (Bronson Slope deposit), a hydrothermally altered, potassium feldspar megacrystic, plagioclase porphyritic intrusion of probable granodioritic composition. The stock is approximately 2.0 kilometres long, up to 0.3 kilometres wide and trends southeast along the southwest side of the Bronson Creek valley. Contacts of the stock with country rocks are not well defined, but where observed in drill core or underground workings are either faulted or intrusive. The southwest and northeast contacts appear to be southwesterly dipping. Screens of altered greywacke up to 40 m wide are common throughout the intrusion. The age of the Red Bluff intrusive is Lower Jurassic. The Red Bluff porphyry is a hydrothermally altered K-feldspar megacrystic, plagioclase porphyritic intrusion of probable quartz diorite to quartz monzonite composition. Subhedral tabular pink K-feldspar phenocrysts generally range in length from 2 mm to 20 mm. They usually comprise from less than 1% to 5% of the modal mineralogy. The matrix to the K-feldspar megacrysts consists of medium-grained porphyry containing phenocrysts of albitic plagioclase, altered amphibole and quartz. The plagioclase is usually completely altered to aggregates of sericite+/- quartz +/- K-feldspar. Mafic phenocrysts, probably original hornblende from grain shapes, are commonly altered to magnetite, hematite, pyrite, biotite, and chlorite. Equant, clear to smoky sub rounded quartz phenocrysts, 0.2 mm to 1.5 mm in diameter, comprise less that 1% to 4%. In areas of moderate to intense alteration original quartz is difficult to identify. Accessory minerals include apatite, zircon and titanite. The fine-grained matrix to the phenocrysts forms between 35% and 70% of the rock volume. Click here for a virtual tour of the Bronson Slope deposit HISTORICAL EXPLORATION AND DRILLING Bronson Slope was originally staked in 1911 and is characterized by a 245 metre red stained bluff on the south bank of Bronson Creek. Between 1916 and 1920, two adits were driven, as well as several open cuts, which exposed good prospects in gold and copper. In 1919, a vein was reported along this side-hill that assayed values of copper, silver and gold across approximately 9 metres. Skyline personnel have worked on the Property since 1988 and it was during a 1992 review by Burgoyne of all exploration and drilling data that the alteration and then defined mineralization indicated the potential for a large low-grade porphyry copper-gold deposit. In 1993 Skyline performed Induced Polarization and Chargeability surveys and a limited drilling program of 872 metres over 7 drill holes on two separate cross-sections of the deposit. This program was successful and is recognized in partially defining the Bronson Slope porphyry copper, gold deposit. A total of 14,714 metres of drilling over 77 diamond drill core holes were drilled in 1965, 1984, 1988 and from 1993 through 1997. This drilling has defined the resource. Approximately 400 metres uphill of the porphyry, Skyline has traced a near surface zone of disseminated and stockwork gold mineralization known as the Highwall gold zone. The zone can be followed along strike for approximately 800 metres on Skyline's property. The zone likely represents the easterly continuation of the deeper, high-grade gold structure mined at the Snip deposit. Also during 1996 and 1997 Skyline completed a substantial amount of engineering scoping, metallurgical, geotechnical, infrastructure and access, environmental, capital and operating costs, projected cash flow and other scoping studies on the Bronson Slope deposit. In late July 1997 the Company was able to announce the acquisition of two key mineral titles from Prime Resources Group Inc., which helped to enhance the Bronson Slope project. The two properties, the Kathleen fraction and the High Wall, are adjacent to Skyline's Bronson Slope. The Kathleen fraction allowed Skyline to consolidate its four principal Bronson Slope claims into one continuous block. Upon acquisition of the High Wall area (of the Bronson Slope deposit) from Prime Resources Group, Skyline also obtained access to previously drilled core completed in this area. Skyline's 1997 program included the surveying of 7 historic core holes, re-logging of the drill holes, core splitting, and geochemical analyses of previously unsampled stockwork mineralization. A six hole drill program conducted on the High Wall gold zone in 1997 defined a zone of gold mineralization with a strike length of 800 metres parallel to both the Bronson Slope porphyry deposit and to the Snip shear zone vein deposit. HISTORICAL MINERAL RESOURCE Several resource estimates were undertaken by Skyline in the period of 1994 through 1997. Some of the initial estimates were done mainly to identify zones of mineralization for future drilling and define tonnage ranges for future engineering studies. C.M. Turek, P.Eng., undertook the in-house Skyline resource estimates, at the time using the PC-EXPLORE software of Gemcom Services in Vancouver. The second group of resource estimates were completed during the period April 1996 to July 1997 using outside consultants G.H. Giroux, P. Eng. and G.F. Raymond, P.Eng. At the time of the consultant's estimates and later, Skyline also engaged Mr. W. Martin, P.Eng., a Skyline employee, to undertake combined resource/mine plan estimates for modelling and economic analyses using SURPAC software and Whittle optimization pit plan. During the period May 10, 2007 to March 5, 2010 a number of N.I. 43-101 compliant resource estimates were performed by Burgoyne and Giroux (May, 2007), Burgoyne and Giroux (April, 2008) and Burgoyne, Burgert and Giroux (January, 2010). PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC ASSESSMENTS A Preliminary Assessment (PA) technical report including an economic assessment, mineplan, and cost estimate was completed by Leighton Engineering on March 6, 2009. A Preliminary Assessment Update ('PAU') performed by Moose Mountain Technical Services was contained in a N.I. 43-101 compliant report dated November 5, 2010. The PAU Technical report contained the following positive economic data based on a Life of Mine ('LOM') mill feed of 2.2 million ounces of gold. Project Economics The PA projects a 38 year life-of-mine ('LOM') with production of 1.757 million oz. of gold, 383.624 million pounds of copper, 6.8 million ounces of silver and 9.66 million tonnes of high purity magnetite powder. Economic evaluation of the Project is based on a pre-tax financial model. For the project as defined in this update of a 38 year LOM project with 191 million tonnes of mill feed, the financial results using base case inputs as above are:
Project Details
The three phase mine plan includes a total mined resource as follows:
The three phase mine plan includes a total mined resource as follows:
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