The Smitty prospect was discovered by Kenrich-Eskay Mining Corporation on their Corey property in 2004. The prospect contains volcanogenic massive suiphides (VMS) within Eskay-type mudstones and occurs near the contact with Eskay-type tholeiitic basalts.
The VMS mineralization comprises bedded massive pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena and tetrahedrite within mudstone of the Middle Jurassic Salmon River Formation, Hazeleton Group. The massive sulphide portion of the discovery is up to 0.9 metre thick in outcrop. The massive sulphide and mudstone are within a wider band of rhyolite, intermediate volcanics and volcaniclastic sediments close to the contact with overlying basalt correlative with the Eskay rift volcanic-sedimentary succession. A chip sample across 0.9 metres yielded 0.62 per cent copper, 0.14 per cent lead, 4.32 per cent zinc and 159 grams per tonne silver (Progress Report: 2004 Exploration on the Corey Property, Kenrich-Eskay Mining Corporation (www.kenrich-eskay.com)).
A total of 11 drillholes were drilled at the Smitty Zone during the 2005 program and an additional 4 holes (1717 metres) in 2007. This drilling was designed to follow-up the discovery of an Eskay-age silver-rich polymetallic massive sulphide occurrence discovered in out-crop during the 2004 program. The intervals of Eskay-equivalent mudstones that host the surface showing at Smitty are clearly intruded and disrupted by mafic sills of a closely similar age to the mudstones. This contemporaneous sill formation is a defining feature of the Eskay rift, but at the Smitty, has increased the difficulty of following the mineralized interval over substantial distances away from the showing.
Notwithstanding, drilling intersected sulphidic intervals containing sub-economic enrichments of zinc over intervals of up to 9 metres in core. For example, drillhole CR05-04 returned an average of 2682 ppm Zn over 4.1 metres (Kenrich-Eskay Mining Corp, Circular (company website. These same intervals also contain anomalous concentrations of arsenic, antimony and mercury. Similar such intervals are found elsewhere in the Smitty drilling and some of these appear to be continuous between drill holes. Company geologists interpret these results as distal to a seafloor hydrothermal system within the Eskay rift sequence.
See Cumberland (104B 011) for details of a common property work history.
