RDN, BC
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 RDN Location Map Click to enlarge |
Property Status
Northgate earning 51% interest by funding $5 million in explorationKiska owns 100% of the 149 sq. km RDN property, subject to a 1.33% NSR. Northgate Minerals Corporation is in the first year of an agreement allowing Northgate to earn a 51% interest in the RDN by making property exploration expenditures totalling C$5 million by December 31, 2007 and cash payments totalling C$200,000 to Kiska. After vesting its interest, Northgate can earn an additional 9% (for a total of 60%) by funding all expenditures through to the completion of a positive feasibility study. Kiska remains project operator until Northgate has vested its 51% interest in the joint-venture.
Property Overview
Eskay Creek-style gold and silver-rich stratiform sulphidesBarrick's Eskay Creek mine is Canada's highest-grade gold mine and the world's fifth largest silver producer. Production and reserves total 4.0 million oz gold and 153 million oz silver at a grade of 48.4 g/t (1.4 oz/ton) gold and 2221 g/t (63 oz/ton) silver. Most of the ore lies within stratiform lenses of precious metal-rich sulphides and sulphosalts overlying rhyolite domes in a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) setting. Kiska has no direct or indirect interest in the Eskay Creek Mine.
Maps
Click to enlarge.
Updated April 26 2010
Regional (right) and property-scale (left) maps of the RDN Property. Barrick's Eskay Creek Mine road passes within 15 km of the RDN Property.
Regional (right) and property-scale (left) maps of the RDN Property. Barrick's Eskay Creek Mine road passes within 15 km of the RDN Property.
Highlights
The RDN property covers a felsic centre which lies near the top of the Early to Middle Jurassic Hazelton Group. Variably altered dacitic to trachytic volcanics and subvolcanic intrusives, with lesser rhyolite, are overlain by carbonaceous, pyritic argillite and pillow basalt. This stratigraphy is correlative to that of the Eskay Creek deposit, which is hosted by a carbonaceous, pyritic, argillite horizon above a rhyolitic flow-dome complex and beneath pillow basalt.Mineralization
High-grade "footwall" veins and clastic massive sulphidesInitial exploration (1989-92) of the RDN claims focused on gold-rich quartz sulphide veins, including drill intersections of 1.95 metres @ 101 g/tonne (2.95 oz/ton) gold and 0.85 metres @ 138 g/t (4.0 oz/ton) gold. These high-grade intersections are hosted by altered dacitic tuffs, the "footwall" in the Eskay Creek model. At Eskay Creek, high-grade footwall veins were the focus of exploration for fifty years prior to the discovery of the stratiform orebodies.
The Marcasite Gossan is an altered and stockwork-veined dacite, with textures indicative of emplacement and mineralization at shallow water depths on the seafloor. Float discovered in 1998 of clastic massive pyrite shows that this hydrothermal system vented to the sea floor and accumulated as stratiform sulphides. The Eskay Creek stratiform orebodies are at this same stratigraphic level in the Hazelton Group and were also emplaced at shallow depths.
Current Exploration
Northgate funded exploration totalling $1 million in 2006, including a four hole (1350 metre) drill program on the Arctic Grid target. Drilling successfully tested the Eskay Creek time equivalent mudstone - rhyolite contact encountering anomalous zinc, arsenic, and silver in hole RDN-06-49. Hole RDN-06-047 intersected a 2.1 metre interval of fault-controlled mineralization averaging 361 g/t silver in a structure above the prospective horizon. This mineralization is of limited significance and will not be followed up.
