Projects
Mineral Creek
 Mineral Creek Location Map |
Mineral Creek Summary Report, June 2005
Bitterroot's Mineral Creek property is located 10 km southeast of Port Alberni on British Columbia's Vancouver Island. Over the past five years, Bitterroot has explored Mineral Creek for high-grade gold deposits. Previous owner Westmin Resources and its partners spent more than $14-million exploring for gold at Mineral Creek in the late 1980s, although they were initially attracted to the area by the presence of Sicker Group volcanic rocks. The Sicker Group also hosts the 30-million tonne Myra Falls polymetallic (Zn-Cu-Pb-Au-Ag) volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits, approximately 80 km to the northwest.
Westmin and its partners identified polymetallic VMS mineralization plus disseminated and bonanza-style epithermal gold mineralization at several locations on the 70 square-kilometre Mineral Creek property. Westmin completed more than 50,000 metres of drilling, 1,200 metres of trenching, and collected more than 20,000 soil samples. Westmin also drove a 1.8 kilometre-long exploration tunnel and 230 meters of crosscuts and raises for drill platforms and bulk samples. The project area is accessible by an extensive network of all-weather logging roads and is proximal to industrial infrastructure, a local power grid, and a deep water port. Bitterroot has completed 37,503 metres of core drilling in 216 holes since optioning and acquiring the Mineral Creek property.
In 2010, data from three decades of exploration at Mineral Creek was compiled by Bitterroot's geologists into a comprehensive GIS database. The compilation work has highlighted several extensive untested zinc and copper-in-soil anomalies which are prospective for VMS mineralization. There is also potential for the discovery of additional high-grade and bulk-tonnage gold deposits associated with the Mineral Creek and Gap fault systems. In 2010, Bitterroot's field crews collected 390 soil samples which have confirmed the tenor and size of these untested soil geochemical anomalies.
In late 2010, a high-resolution airborne electromagnetic (VTEM) survey was flown to further define VMS and gold targets associated with the soil anomalies. There are several known base metals occurrences within the surveyed area, including the Debbie #3 showing which is comprised of stratiform mineralization in altered basalt and which returned assays up to 14.1-percent zinc with associated lead and copper over a 0.2 m width. Several target areas have been identified that have the potential to host structurally-controlled gold mineralization and polymetallic VMS (base metals) mineralization.
In March 2011, Bitterroot staked 98 additional claims covering 2064 hectares. These claims are located several kilometres north of the Mineral Creek Property, covering several newly- documented base metals showings and previously identified gold-in-soil anomalies in an area underlain by the favourable Sicker Group strata. The 2011 field programs are currently being developed.