The Metalworks showing is located on east-facing upper mountain sides east of Mount Sir Robert and north of Legate Peak and 12 kilometres east of Yellowhead Highway 16 and the Skeena River, 45 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 Metalworks 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. Mineralization to the north of the zone in lower elevations is overprinted by pervasive potassic alteration. Phreatic hydrothermal quartz-calcite breccia occurs adjacent to an extensive 25 centimetre wide vein in the southern part of the Metalworks Zone and has returned values of 100 grams per tonne silver and 0.37 per cent copper.
The Metalworks 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 Metalworks showed the mineralized areas appear related to an intermediate composition, volcanic stratigraphic layer within the volcanic pile bounded by mafic volcanic flows. The volcanic sequence is characterized by syn-volcanic hematization that is variably distributed throughout different volcanic units. A prominent east trending brittle-ductile fault and an east-southeast trending carbonate-associated fault zone demarks the northern and southern boundaries of the Metalworks mineralized corridor, respectively (Assessment Report 37539).
2017 mapping determined two styles of mineralization at Metalworks:
1) early, peripheral east-trending Quartz+Chlorite+Epidote+Fe Carbonate +/- Cu (malachite staining on vein walls). Alteration zonation is associated with these veins (1-5m widths) with central Quartz-Cu+/- Fe Carbonate, proximal propylitic alteration on quartz vein wall and distal matrix replacement of host rock Fe Carbonate alteration. These early veins are offset by later north-northwest and northwest veins that host Au mineralization.
2) consists of Pyrite+/- Base metals associated with texturally destructive Potassium Feldspar+Specular Hematite+Silica alteration that is more centrally located within the bounding east-trending faults.
Property wide LiDAR and airborne geophysical surveys, ground IP surveys (including Metalwork 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 areas of the 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).
