The Sitka North occurrence is located near the head of a small southwest facing valley, north of the Akie River and approximately 4 kilometres northeast of the Akie (MINFILE 094F 031) developed prospect.
Sulphide mineralization is developed within the Gunsteel Formation, an Upper Devonian sequence of graphitic shales overlying Silurian calcareous siltstones of the Road River Group. The Gunsteel is part of the Upper Devonian to Mississippian Earn Group. Mineralization is typically intercalated within the graphitic shales as fine grained, massive to well-bedded pyrite, sphalerite and galena with appreciable barite and carbonate. Remobilized sulphide mineralization occurs as veinlets in the surrounding lithologies.
The Kechika Trough is bounded to the west and east by carbonates and shallow water clastic rocks of the Cassiar and MacDonald platforms, respectively. The Kechika Trough hosts a sequence of upper Devonian to Mississippian basinal facies clastic sedimentary rocks that is a regional target for SEDEX type zinc-lead-silver deposits, such as the nearby Cardiac Creek (MINFILE 094F 031) deposit. The most favourable horizon at the Akie property is a stratiform barite-sulphide layer, hosted within Upper Devonian shales of the Gunsteel Formation. Mapping on the Akie property has identified a number of northwest-trending panels of Gunsteel Formation shales. These shales have been the target of exploration for SEDEX-type ore deposits since 1978.
Locally, an outcrop, approximately 6 metres long and 3 metres wide, of massive, coarse grained subhedral barite with quartz hosts sphalerite and galena mineralization is situated along the thrust contact between siltstones of the Silurian Road River Group and black shales of the Earn Group. The coarse-grained sphalerite is disseminated throughout the barite, while the galea is concentrated within localized pods or seams. A second smaller outcrop of similar material is exposed approximately 50, 500 and 750 metres to the southeast. Similar mineralization is reported further to the southeast across the valley and is covered in the Sitka South occurrence.
Work History
In 2014, ZincX Resources Corp. completed a program of prospecting, geological mapping and geochemical (rock and soil) sampling on the area as the Sitka claims. Five grab samples (1197017 to 1197021) from outcrops over a strike length of approximately 750 metres yielded from 5.87 to 43.55 per cent zinc, 0.03 to 12.04 per cent lead and 0.8 to 12.2 grams per tonne silver, while separate channel samples from the main Sitka zone yielded values of up to 5.12 per cent zinc, 3.72 per cent lead and 9.4 grams per tonne silver (Assessment Report 34726).
In 2018, ZincX Resources Corp. completed 6 diamond drill holes, totalling 2163.0 metres, on the Akie property. Drilling tested the; South-East Extension of the Cardiac Creek Zone (MINFILE 094F 031), the North Lead Anomaly, and the first ever drilling of the Sitka occurrence located on the eastern edges of the property. Drilling on the Sitka North occurrence intersected series of narrow vein zones characterized by smoky blue-grey quartz with coarse-grained sphalerite, commonly cut by quartz-carbonate veining associated with the contact between Silurian age siltstones and Kwadacha limestone. Drilling yielded intercepts of up to 3.79 per cent zinc over 5.08 metres, including 11.33 per cent zinc over 0.99 metre in hole A-18-144, 1.91 per cent zinc over 7.65 metres, including 11.09 per cent zinc over 0.86 metre in hole A-18-145 and 1.10 per cent zinc over 12.98 metres as well as a broad, approximately 40-metre-thick zone enriched in silver with values ranging from 2.4 to 14 grams per tonne in hole A-18-149 (Assessment Report 38008).
The following year, ZincX Resources Corp. completed a program of drill core re-sampling from the 2018 drilling program. The resampling outlined a large 57.91 metre zone grading 6.5 grams per tonne silver extending to the end of the hole with silver grades that ranged up to 14.0 grams per tonne (Assessment Report 38856). The zone is open at depth and its full extent is unknown.
