Cariboo Gold Project (Cow Mountain)
Overview
The Cariboo Gold Project is situated within the Cariboo Gold Belt, a world-class producer of gold with a history of mining that dates back to the Cariboo gold rush of the 1860's. In excess of 2.5 million ounces of gold have been estimated to have been produced from the region.
The project area hosts a number of past-producing gold mines including: Cariboo Gold Quartz mine, Island Mountain/Aurum and Mosquito Creek Gold Mines. The Cariboo Gold Quartz mine exploited primarily quartz vein mineralization and from 1933 to 1959 is reported to have produced 1.68 million tons grading 0.37 oz/ton Au. Island Mountain and Mosquito Creek operated between 1934-1967 and 1980-1983 respectively exploiting both quartz vein and replacement style mineralization for a total reported production of 603,800 ounces of gold from 1.35 million tons of ore (quartz vein ore grading 0.35 oz/ton and replacement ore averaging 0.67 oz/ton).
The Cariboo Gold Project is a proposed open pit mine on Cow Mountain within the Rainbow, Sanders and Pinkerton Zones, which are centred on a large knoll on Cow Mountain.
These zones were discovered in the 1930s by the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company, and were subject to some underground mining during the period of operation of the Cariboo Gold Quartz mine. A current (2006) resource of 430,885 ounces of gold indicated and 90,936 ounces inferred has been identified in accordance with NI 43-101 standards (at a 0.02 oz/t cut-off). Permitting was initiated in 2000 under the B.C. Environmental Assessment Act and was temporarily suspended when the Bonanza Ledge discovery was made. Permitting was re-initiated in 2005.
The Company has budgeted an initial 20,000 meter surface and underground diamond drill program within and beneath the proposed open-pit mine on Cow Mountain, as well as in the newly discovered area outside of the proposed pit area. The drill program will consist of 202 surface and underground drill holes, the purpose of which is two-fold. Firstly, it will serve to upgrade the current NI 43-101 resource back to the historic resource (estimate prior to NI 43-101 compliance) of over 1.01 million ounces at 4 g/t gold by twinning historic holes drilled in the 1980s that have been excluded in the NI 43-101 resource. Secondly, the bulk of the drilling is designed to deepen the proposed pit and current 43-101 resource by 375 ft. Underground drilling will target the area immediately beneath the currently proposed pit from the 1200 level (4375 ft elevation) down to the 1500 level (4000 ft elevation).
In March 2010, Barkerville received government approval to begin a drill program in the Grouse Creek area of the Cariboo Gold claim group and a 3,000 meter diamond drill program with a budget of $500,000 commenced immediately. The Grouse Creek area runs over a 7 kilometer length southeast of Barkerville Mountain, immediately adjacent to the Bonanza Ledge deposit and on trend with the past-producing, Cariboo Hudson Gold, Cariboo Gold Quartz, Island Mountain Gold, Mosquito Creek Gold and Hard Scrabble Tungsten/Gold Mines.
The drill program is designed to target both replacement and quartz vein styles of mineralization discovered during previous exploration seasons. Quartz vein rock samples collected in 2008 from the eastern portion of the upper Grouse Creek property included: 232 g/t gold from sample #13695, 16.7 g/t gold from sample #13689 and 13.6 g/t gold from sample # 13656.
