George Sanders, President of Goldcliff Resource Corporation, recently stated that the target generation exploration operation at its Ainsworth silver project, situated close to Kaslo, B.C., continues to exhibit the high-grade nature of this notable silver district.
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Aerial geophysics and a combined sediment, rock and soil sampling program were conducted on the Ainsworth property during the summer of 2021 to concentrate on geochemically and geophysically anomalous areas discovered in the preceding years.
Goldcliff’s latest exploration efforts have been concentrated on the southern portion of the claim holdings around the highest grade historic mine, the No. 1 and other high-grade prospects close by, including the Silver Hoard and Dellie. Rock values as high as 1,381 g/t silver and soil values as high as 218 ppm silver were acquired in samples throughout old historic trenches upslope from the No. 1 Mine adit.
Sediment values as high as 77.55 ppm silver, and soil values up to 165 ppm silver, were found from the area between the No.1 mine and the Silver Hoard, all of which are very promising for the prospect of finding further silver mineralization.
A high-resolution combined magnetic, VLF-EM, and spectrometer aerial survey was conducted covering the southern parts of the property in the summer of 2021. An initial interpretation of the aerial data has shown a number of small magnetic highs and reasonable potassium highs sited within areas of quiet magnetic activity and low (quiet) gamma-ray total count.
The No. 1 Mine as well as the Silver Hoard/Dellie prospects matches the small magnetic and potassium highs within the quiet areas.
Goldcliff’s analysis indicates that these quiet areas also possess new geophysical targets located in areas of limestone inside the mapped Milford Group sediments. The new targets are related to the structure inferred from both the spectrometer and magnetic data.
Analysis of the mine dump of the No. 1 Mine produced a sample grading 3,553 g/t silver. As this is a dump grab sample, it is not suggestive of any in-place, out-cropping mineralization. The sample was chosen as it was clearly mineralized but the high analytic result was not anticipated based on visual analysis.
The majority of mine dumps in the Ainsworth district have been manually scavenged by prospectors over the last century. It is astonishing to find any good mineralized material still on the dumps. Grades of this type in a normal-looking specimen are promising to Goldcliff’s team because this tenor of mineralization may have been disregarded by miners in the early 1900s.
Goldcliff is the biggest claim holder in the Ainsworth camp with around 4,455 hectares. A large segment of the holdings was purchased by staking and are owned 100%. The balance of the land position is kept under a choice to purchase 100%.
More exploration activity will be based around the Direct Shipping exploitation model. Ainsworth is around 120 km from the Teck-Cominco smelter in Trail, B.C.
Goldcliff is a multi-asset exploration and development company that places emphasis on projects where a bootstrap development approach may be applicable. Existing active projects include the Kettle Valley gold/silver and Ainsworth silver properties in B.C. and the Nevada Rand gold/silver and Aurora West gold properties in Nevada.
Ed Rockel, P. Geo, qualified person as stipulated by the National Instrument 43-101, oversaw the preparation and verification of the technical data contained in this article.