The Rojo Grande showing is located on Rojo Grande Peak, approximately 2.3 kilometres south-southwest of the Hank occurrence (MINFILE 104G 107).
The area is underlain by Upper Triassic Stuhini Group andesitic to basaltic flows, pyroclastics, volcanic derived sediments and minor limestone, overlain unconformably by poorly indurated, well-bedded sediments of Jurassic age. These rocks have been intruded by a dioritic intrusion.
Rojo Grande comprises the southwestern portion of the Hank epithermal system, located at elevations between 1600 and 1900 metres, south of the Barrick Property on the Ball Creek Property. The alteration zone lies south of the 185 Ma Bald Bluff orthoclase megacrystic porphyry and at higher levels, extending to Goat Peak. It also overlies the Flats zone, where potassic alteration was intersected at depth in drilling.
Alteration is characterised by quartz-alunite-dickite, extending outward to quartz-clay-pyrite enveloping north-trending linear zones of intense quartz-pyrite. Rojo Chico is the 150 metre-wide extension of the Rojo Grande zone to the northwest, and consists of massive, granular quartz-clay-pyrite alteration.
Soil sampling by Homestake in 1992 delineated a 500 x 900 metre zone of anomalous arsenic and mercury (Assessment Report 22747). Within this zone there are several areas with anomalous gold values from 90 to 736 pbb gold. An IP survey outlined a broad, deep-seated resistivity high on the northwest flank of Rojo Grande, in part correlative with the soil gold anomalies. Rock chip samples collected by Homestake of the alteration zone were weakly anomalous in gold, to a high of 355 ppb from the linear band of alteration east of Goat Peak.
Sampling of the alteration zone by Solomon yielded up to 0.65 gram per tonne gold (Assessment Report 21205). In 1992, rock sampling yielded up to 0.35 part per billion gold and 1766 parts per million copper (Assessment Report 22747).
Work History
The Rojo Grande zone is wholly contained within the present Ball Creek property of Paget minerals who controlled much of the area in the late 2000s. Work on Cominco's Panky claims, which included the Rojo Grande zone, was initiated in 1990, when Solomon Resources completed a program of mapping, soil sampling (40 samples) and rock sampling (16 samples; Assessment Report 21205). In 1992, Homestake Canada Ltd. optioned the Hank property, including the Panky claim group, and completed a sampling program, including soils (180 samples), silts (23 samples) and rocks (110 samples), as well as an induced polarization survey (1.8 kilometres) and detailed geological mapping (Assessment Report 22747).
In January, 2005 the area was open ground, and was staked by John Bradford, John Fleishman and Nigel Luckman for Paget Resources. Subsequently the property has been enlarged several times by additional staking. In the late 2000s, the Ball Creek property spanned an east-west distance of 45 kilometres from Hickman Creek to within 4 kilometres of the Iskut River.
Paget Minerals Corp conducted an initial reconnaissance evaluation of the property in 2005 (Assessment Report 28076). In 2006, a major field program, including mapping, sampling and diamond drilling, was conducted (Assessment Report 28833). The 2006 exploration program tested five separate target areas by diamond drilling: the Cliff Zone, Mary Camp zone and DM Zone (Ball Creek porphyry) and the Central and South Zone (Mess Creek). In 2007, a diamond drilling program was carried out (Assessment Report 29568). The 2007 exploration program tested three separate target areas by diamond drilling: the Ball Creek Porphyry (Mary (104G 018) and ME (104G 042), Mess Creek (???), and North More (new View and Canyon showings). In 2008, a small diamond drilling program was carried out which consisted of two drill holes in the upper part of the Main zone (Mary area) of the Ball Creek porphyry (Assessment Report 30743). In 2011, a seven day reconnaissance mapping project was carried out in July by Specialized Geological Mapping for Paget Minerals to determine epithermal drill targets outside of the main porphyry system. Once drilling targets had been identified, a six week diamond drilling program was conducted. The 2011 drill program consisted of four drill holes in the upper and middle part of the Main Zone of the Ball Creek porphyry, two drill holes in the North Rainbow epithermal target (new MINFILE) and two drill holes in the Upper Rainbow epithermal target (new MINFILE). Other showings and prospects explored or documented by Paget subsequent to 2005 included the the Rojo Grande.
See Mary (104G 018) for related details and a common area work history.
