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Sun Summit Minerals (TSXV: SMN; US-OTC: SMREF) says 2023 could be a decisive year for the company’s Buck gold-silver-zinc project in north-central British Columbia. A set of 3,000 metres of outstanding drill results will shed light on how large the emerging epithermal system is, and company president Sharyn Alexander says an initial resource could be ready before the year is out.
“With the results of the recent batch of drilling coming out very shortly, 2023 will be a time where we’ll start considering whether or not this is something that we’d like to put a resource on or continue drilling,” Alexander says.
The Buck property has a rich background as a former placer gold camp in the early 20th century, and Alexander says there is evidence of early mining through adits dating to the 1910s and 20s.
The company optioned the project from Hunter Dickinson International (HDI) in 2019, during a low gold price period.
Part of the Late Cretaceous Kasalka Group, the Buck deposit is potentially similar to significant bulk-tonnage gold deposits in B.C., such as Artemis Gold’s (TSXV: ARTG) Blackwater gold project, which is slated to pour first gold in 2026.
So far, Sun Summit’s (formerly San Marco Resources) work near the town of Houston has confirmed the presence of an extensive hydrothermal system featuring intensely altered breccia bodies, with mineralization still open in all directions.
Drilling campaigns since 2020 have consistently intersected broad new zones of mineralization, with step-out drilling preferred as the team tries to establish the lateral footprint of the Buck Main mineralized structure.
“We have confirmed that Buck Main hosts these large intercepts of near-surface mineralization. We have intercepts of up to 300 metres from surface of 0.5 gram gold per tonne, up to 1 gram. And when you work in a gold-equivalent calculation, which includes gold, silver, and zinc, were have more than a gram per tonne over 300 meters right from surface,” says Alexander.
