The Metalback showing is located on south-facing upper ridge sides 500 metres east of Mount Sir Robert and above Little Oliver Creek valley, 42.5 kilometres northeast of Terrace, B.C.
Regionally, the Empire Property surrounding Mount Sir Roberts 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 Metalback showing is in the western region of the Empire property, approximately 3 kilometres west of the Metalworks showing (Inca Trend). Quartz veining and shear zone mineralization in the Metalback area are hosted in mafic porphyritic volcanic rocks and silicified felsic volcanic rocks.
J2 Syndicate Holdings Ltd. initiated a 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) included three zones: Metallica, Metalworks and Olympus.
Exploration on the Empire property continued in 2017 with J2 Syndicate as owner and 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 (Assessment Report 37539).
Property wide LiDAR and airborne geophysical surveys, ground IP surveys (including the Rockstar area), 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. It was during this period of prospecting and sampling that Metalback was discovered, returning strong anomalous values in Au, Ag and Cu (Assessment Report 38018).
In 2019 a comprehensive report was completed on the Empire property and a small drill program focused on the Rockstar area in southern end of the Inca Trend. Diamond drill hole EM-19-20 at Rockstar intersected 4.7m of 1.173 per cent Cu with 0.114 gram per tonne Au from the top of the hole. This hole tested the extent of mineralization within a quartz-chalcopyrite breccia (Assessment Report 38978).