Ootsa Lake Property, Porphyry Copper Deposits, British Columbia, Canada

Overview

The Ootsa Lake Property is a located in west-central British Columbia, Canada and hosts  two Porphyry Copper deposits (Seel and Ox deposits) and high grade gold-silver veins (Damascas and Captain Veins). The property 100% owned by Surge Copper Corp., however the Seel Deposit Claims has a Net Smelter Royalty (NSR) of 1% to Rupert Steel and the Ox Deposit claims has a 2% NSR to Silver Standard. Currently the Seel and Ox deposits are at the advanced stage of exploration and to this date are continuing to improve the measured and indicated resources of each deposit. The Huckleberry mine (Owned by Imperial Metals) is 7 km north west of the Seel and Ox deposits.

Regional Geology

The Ootsa Lake project is located in the “Stikinia” terrane, a ancient volcanic arc dating to early Mesozoic times and later accreted to older basement rock in the region. The entire area was subjected to the folding and thrusting of the late Cretaceous Laramide Orogeny, a period of mountain building that resulted in the Rocky Mountains of North America.

Deposit Geology

The deposits are situated within the Smithers Formation, a package of Triassic (252-201 Million Years ago) sedimentary rocks that were intruded by Cretaceous (145-66 Million Years ago) igneous rocks known as the Bulkley Plutonic Suite.

Discussion

The Seel and Ox deposits are  likely associated with their neighbor the Huckleberry mine as all three porphyries are associated with the Bulkley Plutonic suite. Age dating of the rocks helps exploration geologists draw comparisons if rocks within the area are related to the same tectonic event. In this case the Ox deposit is only 1.5 million years younger than the rocks at the huckleberry mine which is a fraction of time on the geologic time scale.

A technical report filed in February 2014 has defined the unconstrained measured and indicated resources of the Ox and Seel Deposits as follows (at a cut-off of 0.2% Copper Equivalent.):

The June 2022 update has increased these resources to 2.7 billion lb at 0.32% CuEq measured and indicated plus 847 million lb at 0.28% CuEq at Seel and 419 million lb at 0.32% CuEq M+I and 10 million lb at 0.2%CuEq inferred at Ox.

Resources estimates of the Seel Deposit appear to be on par with other porphyry copper deposits throughout British Columbia, which compared to porphyry deposits worldwide tend to be lower grade and smaller. Exploration is ongoing on the property and has been successful in increasing tonnage and grade significantly over the last ten years. Surge Copper is beginning early stage environmental and engineering studies, potentially the first steps on a long road to becoming a mine.

Further Reading

• Surge Copper Corp: https://surgecopper.com/projects/ootsa-project/