On June 17, 2021 Rockridge Resources (ROCK.V) and its partner, Eagle Plains Resources released initial results from their recently completed diamond drilling program at the Knife Lake copper project.
Rockridge acquires, explores and develops copper and gold assets in Canada.
The company’s Knife Lake project is located in Saskatchewan, which is ranked as the No. 3 mining jurisdiction in the world by the Fraser Institute. The location is a significant re-risker.
The VMS Knife Lake deposit is a near-surface Cu-Co-Au-Ag-Zn (copper, cobalt, gold, silver, zinc) deposit open along strike and at depth.
Knife Lake is a Volcanic Massive Sulphide (VMS) setting in the (regional) vicinity of the prolific Flin Flon and Snow Lake Mining Camps,” confirmed Equity Guru’s Greg Nolan on May 28, 2021.
“I’m a big fan of VMS settings,” continued Nolan, “Spawned by volcanic hydrothermal events in submarine environments, they almost always occur in clusters—where there’s one deposit (or lens), there are often others. And though they often vary in scale—ranging from one million all the way to 100 million tons—these polymetallic orebodies can hold huge concentrations of metals due to their rich nature.
The Flin Flon camp has produced >170 million tons of sulphide ore from 31 VMS deposits worth in excess of $25 billion dollars.
Knife Lake is best characterized as an advanced-stage VMS project. First discovered in 1968 by Straus Exploration, the project has undergone multiple phases of exploration over the years.
Anchored by over 300 drill holes, the current resource stands at 3.8 MT @ 1.02% Cu Eq in the Indicated category, and 7.9 MT @ 0.67% Cu Eq Inferred.” – End of Nolan.
Rockridge drilled a total of 2,043 metres in 12 drill holes and has received assays and completed interpretation for the first nine holes (1,740.0 m).
Results for the remaining three holes will be released once results have been compiled and interpretation is complete.
The Knife Lake project consists of 81 claims totalling 137,069 acres.
That’s 160 X bigger than Central Park in NYC.
Hell, it’s bigger than a dozen countries.
“Although the Knife Lake deposit was discovered many years ago the exploration in and around the maiden resource has been negligible until just recently,” stated Rockridge’s CEO, Jonathan Wiesblatt.”
ROCK believes that the 2021 airborne VTEM Plus survey expanded the regional target areas beyond the Knife Lake deposit, “increasing the probabilities of making new and potentially meaningful discoveries”.
“The work at Gilbert Lake has been the first drilling program beyond the Knife Lake deposit in decades,” added Wiesblatt, “The results thus far have been very encouraging. We believe that the discovery potential at the broader 15 km Gilbert trend remains high and warrants follow-up work in the near term, which is currently being planned.”
Program Highlights:
- The 2021 drill program was expanded to 2,043.0 metres in 12 drill holes.
- Highlight drill intercepts at the Gilbert South target area include pyrrhotite-pyrite-dominant VMS-style (volcanogenic massive sulphide) mineralization hosted at the same stratigraphic horizon as the Knife Lake deposit.
- Drilling focused on discovering VMS-style copper deposits along newly defined conductors as well as at the Knife Lake VMS deposit.
- Infill drilling at the Knife Lake deposit (follow-up to the 2019 drill program) returned 1.95 per cent Cu, 0.11 gram per tonne gold, 7.41 g/t silver, 0.53 per cent zinc and 0.02 per cent cobalt (2.34 per cent copper equivalent (CuEq)) over 14.02 metres, beginning at 24.62 m in hole KF21021.
- Results for the remaining three holes will be released once results have been compiled and interpretation is complete.
- The deposit is thought to be a remobilized portion of a primary VMS deposit; most of the historical work has consisted of shallow drilling at the deposit area with little regional work carried out and limited deeper drilling below the deposit.
- Over 300 holes provided data for first National Instrument 43-101 resource estimate of the shallow Knife Lake deposit.
- The Knife Lake NI 43-101 resource estimate from 2019 provides an excellent anchor for the project and includes indicated resources of 3.8 million tonnes at 1.02 per cent CuEq (3.8 million tonnes at 0.83 per cent Cu, 3.7 g/t Ag, 0.097 g/t Au, 82 parts per million cobalt and 1,740.7 ppm zinc) as well as inferred resources of 7.9 million tonnes at 0.67 per cent CuEq (7.9 million tonnes at 0.53 per cent Cu, 2.4 g/t Ag, 0.084 g/t Au, 53.1 ppm Co 1,454.9 ppm Zn).
- There is strong discovery potential in and around the deposit as well as at regional targets on the property; modern exploration techniques and methods are being utilized with a goal of making new discoveries.
- Planning is now under way for a summer 2021 exploration program to follow up on the results of this drill program.
Knife Lake winter/spring 2021 diamond drill hole results and geological summary
The first eight holes of the program (1,690.0 m) were completed at the Gilbert Lake North and South target areas, which are approximately five to six kilometres to the west of the Knife Lake deposit.
Geophysical modelling on the airborne VTEM Plus data revealed that three historic holes drilled at Gilbert North by previous operators did not intersect the prospective conductive body. The Gilbert South target, which is over 2.5 km in length, had never been drilled.
Detailed geological interpretations of the Gilbert South target, and Gilbert North target are available here.
Knife Lake deposit
Drill hole KF21021 was designed to follow up on the 2019 resource drilling program and infill historic drilling at the Knife Lake deposit.
The hole returned returned 1.95 per cent Cu, 0.11 g/t Au, 7.41 g/t Ag, 0.53 per cent Zn and 0.02 per cent Co (2.34 per cent CuEq) over 14.02 m beginning at 24.62 m.
The remaining results from the winter 2021 drill program will be released once assays have been compiled and interpreted.
“Price catalysts going forward include Phase-1 Knife Lake drill results (imminent), news of a Raney joint venture, and an upcoming Phase-2 drill campaign scheduled for August or September,” stated Greg Nolan, “It’s during this summer campaign that we’ll see Knife’s depth and regional potential further explored”.
“Rockridge represents an interesting speculation for its district-scale exploration upside,” added Nolan, “and a potential re-rating of its current resource base”.
Full Disclosure: Rockridge Resources is an Equity Guru marketing client.
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