Metallis Resources Inc. is a Vancouver based junior exploration company focused on the exploration of gold, copper, silver and nickel on its 100% owned Kirkham Property situated in the heart of the Golden Triangle in Northern British Columbia. The Golden Triangle is a highly mineralized district, home to mines and advanced exploration projects collectively worth billions of dollars.
The Company acquired the Kirkham Property, which was carefully assembled by world-renowned copper-gold expert, Rodney Kirkham. The property features several geological environments – porphyry, shear vein and magmatic sulphide – and is believed to have the potential for a world class mineral discovery.
-Geology
The Kirkham property lies within the Stikine Terrane, near the boundary between the Intermontane and Coast Tectonic Belts of the Canadian Cordillera. Locally, the Kirkham property lies on the western margin of the Eskay Rift with trans-tensional structures host to several metallic ore deposits in the district. It is underlain by volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Upper Triassic Stuhini Group and the Lower to Middle Jurassic Hazelton Group. According to Kyba and Nelson (2016), the contact between these two rock formations is a key geological marker for copper-gold mineralization in the Golden Triangle. Also referred to as the “Red Line”, this marker has been traced over a strike length of 10km (north-south) on the Kirkham Property.
-COLE & ETTA project:
The Cole Porphyry system defines the northern extent of the 7.5 km long Hawilson Monzonite (‘HM’). The 2017 exploration work outlined a 400m x 200m wide area of gossanous, quartz-sericite-pyrite (‘QSP’) altered diorite and monzodiorite porphyry intrusions. These intrusions are emplaced as NNE-trending (015º) linear dikes hosted by Stuhini andesitic volcanic rocks and unconformably overlaid by Hazelton rocks to the west. The gossan within the QSP alteration are characterized by pervasive and boxwork hematite-jarosite-limonite ± Mn and Cu oxides. The historic surface rock samples with 0.2-0.9% Cu and soil with 300 to >600 ppm Cu and 100-500 ppb Au well correlate with the QSP alteration.
-CLIFF & NINA project:
Cliff-Nina is an extensive (4.0 km x 0.5) Porphyry Copper-Gold corridor on the southern portion of 7.5 km long Hawilson Monzonite complex. This corridor is proximate to the Triassic-Jurassic unconformity, referred to as the “Red Line” (Kyba 2014) an important geological horizon for precious metals.
-KING EAST project:
King East target represent a large (1 km x 2 km) coincident magnetic and resistivity anomaly within the late Triassic Stuhini Group. Previous work highlighted numerous narrow gold-bearing veins, small intrusive stocks and anomalous Au, Cu and Mo values from sub-crop exposed by trenches in the area.Historic trench samplesare highlighted by 17.1 g/t Gold over 0.6 m and 2 g/t over 6 m as well as multiple soil samples that returned values >3 g/t Gold.
-THUDER NORTH project:
The Thunder North prospect is comprised of a cluster of VTEM magnetic and conductive anomalies within an area of 3 x 2km of mafic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of Hazelton formation immediately south of Garibaldi’s Nickel Mountain project. Following the discovery of massive Ni-Cu sulphides at E&L, Metallis Resources carried out a rapid surface exploration program and discovered a 150 x 200m wide intrusive body composed of gabbroic rocks. Although these gabbros do not have more than 7.5 wt.% MgO, they are comparable to the finer-grained gabbros of the Nickel Mountain Gabbro Complex and there is a possibility that more melanocratic variable-textured and orbicular types of gabbro are developed in association with these rocks.The gabbroic rocks are present in outcrop at the southwestern end of the Texas Creek Intrusive Complex, and they occur as fragments in young magnetic-rich volcanic rocks.
-REGIONAL TARGETS project:
Rhyolite Ridge, located ~1 km to the west of the Cole porphyry, was discovered during a mapping and prospecting program in October 2018. The field traverses outlined widespread 200 x 300m sericitic alteration and intense gossan constrained within a north-south trending graben structure in the western part of Kirkham Property. The Rhyolite Ridge target is represented by massive felsic volcanics (Rhyolite) interlayered with a sequence of clastic sedimentary rocks belonging to the Hazelton group. The interbedded felsic volcanic and argillite-siltstone units show intense sericitic and white argillic alteration, hematitic gossan and local massive pyrite bands; an alteration assemblage also visible in the Worldview 3 satellite images (see below).
Rhyolite Ridge is an early stage prospect, where only 12 selective rock samples were collected in 2018 and analyzed by the 4-acid digestion ICP-MS method. One of the samples (Y060657), collected from a limestone unit with quartz-carbonate veins, returned 0.5 g/t Au, which highlight the potential of a vent proximal facies with a siliceous, shallow marine exhalative unit, comparable to the Eskay Creek host stratigraphy. The Metallis technical team is currently evaluating the structural setting, lithostratigraphic units and geochemical results to vector higher grade VMS mineralization and a potential volcanic vent in the area. The 2019 exploration program includes detailed mapping, selective rock-chip and channel sampling and interpretation of the VTEM conductors and worldview 3 spectral analysis to generate drill targets.
The Natt showings, located ~500m to the south of King target, is historically described as narrow N-S trending “Chert bed” interpreted as part of a rift-fill segment of the Eskay Rift that hosts limestone and exhalative rocks. The local stratigraphy shows a succession of volcanic flows, coarse pyroclastic rocks, mudstones, and minor limestone (Chert beds) of the Hazelton formation targeted for VMS style mineralization.
During the 2018 exploration program, the high-resolution VTEM, Worldview 3 remote sensing and mapping of the Hawilson Monzonite porphyry to the east evolved a new perspective of the Natt target. The subtle magnetic response from VTEM surveys, anomalous gold values in soil and rock samples are being interpreted for a shear vein gold or an epithermal gold system to the west of Hawilson Monzonite porphyry complex. The 2019 field work will include detailed geological mapping and rock-chip sampling, designed to integrate the VTEM conductors with local stratigraphy and refine the mineral deposit model and generate drill targets.
The dike swarm target is located immediately to the north of Fewright Creek and ~2 km west of the Hawilson Monzonite. This target is highlighted by a north-trended corridor of 0.5 to 3 m thick granodiorite to andesite feldspar-phyric dikes, which makes up 30-40% of the rock volume. This corridor is about a kilometer wide and extends across the broad alpine terrain to the west of Mt Dunn. The north-south trend and structural setting of the dikes suggest a correlation to Hawilson Monzonite to be investigated in future exploration programs. A large sericite anomaly has also been discovered just east of the dike swarm using the world view 3 satellite imagery. Sericite is an alteration mineral associated with Au-Cu porphyritic intrusions and it can be used to vector porphyry centers. During the 2019 field program, detailed geological mapping would be essential to understand the structural fabric, anomalous gold values, sericitic alteration and significance of the dike swarm, allowing the Metallis geology team to generate drill targets in this area.
The Iliad target lies along the eastern edge of Harrymel Creek in the eastern part of the Kirkham property. Although the Iliad target is completely covered by vegetation, some of the clearings along creeks display fault-controlled gossans to be investigated. The 2018 mapping and prospecting work at the Iliad target revealed a massive diorite stock emplaced into Triassic Stuhini sediments. The diorite stock is characterized by coarse grained textures with quartz-sericite-pyrite and chlorite alteration assemblages. A soil line traverse was conducted which resulted in one sample being anomalous - yielding 0.46 ppm gold.
Later in the 2018 field season, VTEM was flown over the eastern edge of the property and revealed a distinctive sub-circular magnetic anomaly surrounded by magnetic low. The gossans observed during visual reconnaissance from the helicopter correlate with the magnetic lows (magnetite destructive) and a distinct conductive anomaly near the Harrymel creek. Two of the historic Minfile reports (104B226, 104B230) in the area also reported copper and zinc showings and warrant detail mapping, prospecting and sampling to determine the nature of the gossan coincident with the resistivity and concentric zonation of magnetic high-low signature at the Iliad target.
The Terwilligen Target is the northward continuation of lithostratigraphic units and Hawilson Monzonite in the Cole targets. During the 2018 exploration program, Metallis geologists marked the Triassic – Jurassic unconformity “Red Line” and outlined a 100 x 50m wide zone of sericitic alteration and narrow monzodiorite dikes immediately to the north of Cole porphyry system. Further to the north, extensive, fault bounded felsic volcanics (Rhyolite) are overlain by clastic sedimentary rocks belonging to the Hazelton group. Metallis is planning an aggressive fieldwork program for 2019 to map the apparent horse and graben structure and associated gossans for potential VMS mineralization in the area.
A large sub-circular circular VTEM resistivity anomaly coincident with a cluster of magnetic anomalies along the eastern portion of Kirkham property highlight the N-S trending faults along the western margin of Eskay Rift. This area is relatively underexplored and warrants detail geological mapping, sampling and follow-up of the VTEM anomalies to expand on the current understanding and potential of porphyry and/or magmatic Ni-Cu mineralization in the area.
The Maximillian target lies at the southern end of Metallis’ Kirkham Property and approximately 1 km to the south of the historic Max Iron deposit (Minfile No. 104B 013). The area is underlain by a large NE trending Jurassic quartz-diorite stock intruded into the upper Triassic Stuhini volcanics and sedimentary rocks. The Max Iron deposit is characterized by high-grade, magnetite bearing skarn with elevated copper and cobalt values that was discovered and drilled in the 1960’s. Historic contour soil lines were completed across the Maximillian target and were found to have multiple samples greater >100 ppb gold as well as elevated copper and molybdenum values.
An interpretation of the historic geochem and VTEM magnetic and resistivity anomalies suggest that the Maximillian area is prospective for porphyry-skarn mineralization. Any younger mafic intrusive phase (gabbros) will highlight the potential of magmatic sulphide mineralization. Metallis plans to carry out geological mapping and soil sampling along the clustered VTEM magnetic and conductive anomalies to evaluate and generate drill targets.
The King target displays distinct VTEM and geochemical anomalies at lower elevations on the vegetated slopes above King Creek. The VTEM survey completed by Metallis in 2013 indicated a strong, coincident low-resistivity and magnetic anomaly within the Triassic Stuhini rocks. In 2017 the geophysical anomaly was tested with a single diamond drill hole (KH-17-10), which intersected 38.4m of intermediate agglomerate before passing into clastic sediments which continued to the bottom of the hole at 355m. The drill core logs and assays suggest that the VTEM anomaly is attributed to graphitic shale, patchy and veinlet pyrite-pyrrhotite mineralization which partly explained the VTEM anomaly. The distinctive oval resistivity and magnetic anomaly could be related to deformed pyrrhotite-bearing sediments. However, local cm-scale intercepts of stratabound sulphides and anomalous lead, zinc, silver, antimony, arsenic and mercury are interpreted to be a distal expression of a VMS system to be investigated.
King East target represent a large (1 km x 2 km) coincident magnetic and resistivity anomaly within the late Triassic Stuhini Group. Previous work highlighted numerous narrow gold-bearing veins, small intrusive stocks and anomalous Au, Cu and Mo values from sub-crop exposed by trenches in the area.Historic trench samplesare highlighted by 17.1 g/t Gold over 0.6 m and 2 g/t over 6 m as well as multiple soil samples that returned values >3 g/tGold.
Porphyry Cu-Au mineralization isassociated with ~400 m wide and 4 km long, dike swarm of Jurassic age (191 Ma) monzodiorite intrusions and breccias hosted by upper Triassic Stuhini rocks. The intrusions are characterized by typical coarse-grained porphyritic textures with plagioclase feldspars and amphiboles as well as hydrothermal biotite, chlorite, sericite and clay alteration minerals. The porphyry intrusions and breccias exhibit strong potassic and sericitic alteration, quartz-carbonate veins and sulfides; cut by narrow late-mineral to barren diorite dikes.
The structural setting and the interplay between porphyry intrusions, breccias and alteration events are responsible for the gold-rich mineralization at the Cliff-Nina porphyry target which remains open in all directions”. The geological characteristics, metallogeny and copper-gold grades at Cliff-Nina porphyry corridor is similar to the Kerr Deposit of Seabridge Gold’s KSM project, which has an inferred resource of 1.92 billion tonnes grading 0.41% copper and 0.31 g/t gold, containing 19.0 million ounces of gold and 17.3 billion pounds of copper.
Metallis Resources Inc. is a publicly traded company listed on the OTC under the ticker symbol MTLFF.. This is not investment advice. Please view the disclaimer found on this website.
