Teuton Resources Corp. reports that the Sulphurets region, centered on Seabridge Gold's KSM property and Pretium Resources' Brucejack property (with northern and southern extensions covered by many Teuton properties), is becoming recognized as one of the great mineral provinces of the world.
A recent Northern Miner article entitled "Pretium explores porphyry potential at Brucejack" compares the region to Grasberg, Indonesia: Warwick Board, chief geologist at Pretium Resources (TSX: PVG; NYSE: PVG), says excitement is building for exploration at the company's Brucejack project in northwestern B.C., as his team zeroes in on discoveries within a district that compares in metal content to Grasberg, the world's largest gold mine in Indonesia. "One of the things I always thought about before I moved to Canada is just how spectacular the rest of the Cordillera is from Chile, Peru and to Arizona," Board tells The Northern Miner during a phone interview. "At the time it didn't make sense why we're not finding the same mineral wealth here in Canada, but now I think, 'Wow, we're on the edge of finding another massive mineral province with big potential.'"
The sentiment is also echoed by Jeff Kyba, Northwest Regional Geologist for the British Columbia government: "Over the past five years, the northwest Stikine has built its momentum towards becoming the world's next big mineral province," he says. "People are recognizing that these deposits have high-grade roots and big extensions they never thought were there." [BC Survey's 'red line' a game changer for explorers. Northern Miner, May 6, 2015.
Warwick Board has theorized that the gold-rich structures currently being developed for production at Pretium's VOK gold deposit may be related to a porphyry system at depth: Based on indications from drill core and surface data, Board reckons that Brucejack - and the other gold-rich veins exuding out to surface - may be the golden branches of a much larger porphyry deposit hidden beneath. "There's something driving Brucejack, these systems don't exist in isolation, and there's certainly a lot of rusted rock out there," he says.
The article goes on to say: "In recent years, Pretium has come to understand the role of Devonian-aged structures in directing porphyry and epithermal deposits into the crust, and the trail of breadcrumbs it has left for B.C. explorers to follow. Unfortunately, most of these structures today are hidden from view, Board explains, largely overprinted by later deformation events during the Cretaceous, when the margin of western North America collided with the outboard terranes. "During island arc development there were earthquakes going on, and that created the structural plumbing needed to promote emplacement of metal-rich magmas," he says. "What we see in the camp is a distinct north-south trend in mineralization, and that highlights where these old structures are."
The article concludes with the supposition that similar, high-grade, vein-hosted deposits may have been overlooked at other porphyry occurrences in the Golden Triangle such as at the GJ and Red Chris properties.
This theory is important for Teuton because it owns a 100% interest in the Tennyson property (20 km south of Brucejack), a known copper-gold porphyry occurrence as well as a 49% interest in the Treaty Creek property (15km north of Brucejack), which hosts the Copper Belle zone, also believed to be a porphyry-type Cu-Au occurrence. These two properties also host several gold or gold-silver showings spatially related to the porphyry mineralization some of them containing exceptionally high-grade mineralization. For instance, at Treaty Creek, a sample taken from the Konkin Gold zone ran 960 g/t gold across 1.3m. It is likely that as exploration continues on Teuton's many properties in the region other porphyry zones will be found.
In related news, Teuton is also pleased to report that Pretium Resources recently made the second payment in regard to the option of Teuton's King Tut and Tuck properties, adjoining south of the Brucejack property.
Source: http://www.teuton.com/