The Metallica showing is located on southeast-facing upper ridge sides east of Mount Sir Robert and north of Legate Peak and 12 kilometres east of Yellowhead Highway 16 and the Skeena River, 44 kilometres northeast of Terrace, B.C.
Regionally, the Empire Property is situated in the Stikinia orogenic accreted terrane, a volcanic arc assemblage of volcanic and sedimentary rocks. The property itself overlays a sequence of bimodal volcanics and volcaniclastic sediments of the Lower to Middle Jurassic Hazelton Group. The orogenic class of gold deposit is defined here as syn-tectonic quartz-carbonate veins and wall rock replacement associated with regional-scale faults. Orogenic ores form at convergent plate margins in accretionary and collisional orogens.
The Metallica showing is in the central region of the Inca Trend of mineralization on the Empire property, where widespread areas of massive and semi-massive sulphides and sulfosalts occur in abundant, near-vertical and flat-laying quartz-carbonate veins, sheeted veins, breccias and stockworks. Massive sulphide and sulfosalts to semi massive globular disseminations occur in quartz-carbonate veins focused along contacts, filling any point of dilation in the extensively faulted and fractured areas. Yellow-brown ankeritic alteration halos form in carbonatized wall rock with lesser pyrite-sericite-quartz around mineralized sites.
The Metallica showing was discovered during J2 Syndicate Holdings Ltd's 2016 exploration program on their Empire property, during which time a SkyTEM airborne electromagnetic survey was flown, followed by an initial rock sampling program (139 samples). Rock grab samples ranged from below detection limit to 16.4 grams per tonne gold, 36,875 grams per tonne silver, 27.6 per cent copper, 33.9 per cent lead and 29.98 per cent zinc. Two Trends were discovered during the 2016 field season: Inca and Babylon. The north-south striking Inca Trend (1.6 by 1.2 kilometres) includes three zones: Metallica, Metalworks and Olympus. Approximately 3 kilometres southeast of Inca, the 1.6 by 1 kilometre Babylon Trend is subdivided into three areas (Babylon North, Babylon South and Babylon West).
Exploration on the Empire property continued in 2017 with Juggernaut Exploration as operator. Field mapping and sampling (379 channel, 488 chip/grab, 1 talus fine and 22 silt). Much of this work led to the expansion of the Inca Trend mineralization. Mapping at Metallica showed the mineralization is thought to be associated with chlorite, iron-carbonate and quartz veining and may be consistent with an extensional fault system. Mineralization shows a spatial association with strong propylitic-altered felspar porphyry intrusives and there is a distal pervasive propylitic alteration. The northern boundary of current known extent of Au mineralization is marked by a prominent east-trending brittle-ductile fault and the NNW structural corridor is bounded to the west by a moderately dipping NNW trending fault (Assessment Report 37539).
Property wide LiDAR and airborne geophysical surveys, ground IP surveys (including Metallica in the Inca Trend), geological mapping, alteration studies, channel sampling (61), chip/grab rock sampling (544) and prospecting was conducted over the Empire in 2018, while 3209 metres of drilling focused on mineralized zones in the expanded Inca Trend (Assessment Report 38018).
In 2019 a comprehensive report was completed on the Empire property and a small drill program focused on the southern end of the Inca Trend (Rockstar showing) (Assessment Report 38978).
