Metallic’s flagship Keno Silver project is a 100%-owned, brownfields property consisting of 171 square kilometres in the historic Keno Hill Silver District of Canada’s Yukon Territory, an area which has produced over 200 million ounces of silver at an average grade exceeding 1,300 grams per tonne1. Keno Hill hosts Hecla Mining's Keno Hill mines, one of the highest-grade primary silver operations in the world, featuring an estimated life of mine production grade of 804 grams per tonne. The area features excellent infrastructure, with well-developed and maintained roads, as well as access to the Yukon power grid.
Keno Hill-type silver deposits consist of high-grade silver veins, typically 1-5 metres in width, grading from 200 g/t to >5,000 g/t silver, with associated lead and zinc sulphides. The largest individual deposits in the district, which range from 10 million to 100 million ounces of contained silver1, are associated with northeast trending, southeast dipping fault/vein structures that form major ore shoots in the preferred host rocks, Keno Hill quartzite and Triassic greenstone.
Metallic Minerals' land package covers the eastern portion of the district, along with sections on the western and southern sides, and was host to eight historical silver mines with some of the highest grades in the district and five that had average production grades above 5,000 g/t1. The Keno Silver project is comprised of the West, Central and East Keno target areas. Mineralization at West and Central Keno occurs along extensions of major structural corridors that host Hecla's Silver King, Elsa, and Hector-Calumet, Flame & Moth and Lucky Queen deposits – the largest in the district.
Drilling at East Keno confirmed the presence of high-grade Keno-style mineralization within broad continuous zones of potential bulk-tonnage silver mineralization. These results expand the known extent of drill-defined Keno-style mineralization by 10 kilometers to the east and south of the historic Keno Hill mine and open this major new area of prospective stratigraphy for exploration. The occurrence of mineralization within broad areas of brecciation and pervasive silicification has also expanded the potential favorable host rock settings beyond the main Keno Hill quartzite and greenstones in this area. Multi-kilometer-scale soil anomalies spatially correspond with large geophysical magnetic low features that may represent magnetite destructive alteration zones or proximal, buried mineralizing intrusive bodies.
The geologic setting at East Keno appears to be similar to those hosting some of the world’s largest bulk-tonnage silver deposits, including Newmont’s Peñasquito, Fortuna’s Caylloma, and SSR’s Chinchillas deposits, which are hosted in breccia, fracture, and stockwork structural zones, as well as higher-grade sheeted veins and structures.
Footnotes
1Cathro, R. J. (Bob). Great Mining Camps of Canada 1. The History and Geology of the Keno Hill Silver Camp, Yukon Territory. Geoscience Canada, [S.l.], Sept. 2006. ISSN 1911-4850; Boyle, R.W., 1965. “Geology, Geochemistry, and Origin of the Lead-Zinc-Silver Deposits of the Keno Hill–Galena Hill Area, Yukon Territory”. Bulletin 111, Geological Survey of Canada.
*References to adjoining properties are for illustrative purposes only and are not necessarily indicative of the exploration potential, extent or nature of mineralization or potential future results of the Company’s projects. The Company does not have access to such project or underlying information and has not independently verified any of the scientific, technical or exploration information related to such third-party project.
The scientific and technical information in this presentation has been reviewed by Scott Petsel, P.Geo., a non-independent qualified person as defined in NI 43-101.
