Westmin High grade on Debbie bet excites Westmin Res.

The Sicker Group on Vancouver Island has been the subject of some fairly intense exploration in recent years, much of it by Westmin Resources and Nexus Resource Corp. Westmin’s Buttle Lake mining operation is located in the group and it is among the highest grade polymetallic ore deposits in the country.

Recently Westmin’s exploration efforts on its Debbie property six miles east of Port Alberni have really started to pay off. Results from the 900 zone included 44.3 ft of 1.1 oz gold in hole DN50-87. Within that interval was a section grading 1.8 oz across 25.3 ft, one of the best intercepts reported in recent years in British Columbia.

Nexus Resource Corp. and Angle Resources have been funding the work and have each earned a 25% interest in the 232-claim- unit property. More than $2 million will be spent on the property in the 1987 flow-through year, says Jim MacNeil, president of Nexus and Angle. The Nexus Group expects to raise $11 million in flow-through funds this year and $19 million in 1988. First Exploration Fund 1987-88 will provide the capital.

According to Richard Walker, Westmin’s exploration manager for Vancouver Island, “the intersection is not isolated” and he confirms they have found gold in altered mafic volcanics and “ore grade gold over mineable widths in bedded chert.” Their first real encouragement came in hole DN8-86 which returned 21.6 ft of 0.14 oz gold including 11.8 ft grading 0.21 oz.

Mr Walker confirms the chert horizon ran from “top to bottom” and he notes encouraging values were reported in a hole on a nearby section. Hole DN13-86 returned 5.9 ft of 0.22 oz gold in jasperoid which is associated with the chert unit.

The high grade section mentioned earlier was not in chert but in a quartz stockwork and it contained hardly any sulphide. The 900 zone is quite complex and he says it has a “number of associated features that are quite encouraging.”

The majority of the drilling thus far has been done on the Mineral Creek zone which is 4,000 ft north- northeast of the 900 zone. This zone also includes some chert, jasperoid, a rhyolite tuff horizon and a quartz carbonate alternation zone, he points out. Almost 29,000 ft of drilling has been completed on the property, much of it here.

In terms of mining potential he admits that the stratigraphic-structural relationship suggests it “could be large tonnage,” while cautioning that much more work has to be done. Mr Walker credits the discovery to the efforts of Westmin field geologists John Watkins, Ted Trueman, Ed Lyons and Georgina Price.