Buck

Buck Project Overview

The Buck Project is located in a historic mining district with excellent nearby infrastructure that allows for year-round, road-accessible, cost-effective exploration. The project is 10 kilometres south of the town of Houston, 60 kilometres southeast of the Smithers airport and is located west of the past producing Equity Silver Mine (Newmont) and north of the Huckleberry copper mine (Imperial Metals).

The Company has been actively exploring the Buck Project since 2020 where it has focused on investigating the lateral and vertical extent of epithermal-related gold-silver-zinc mineralization at the Buck Main system where over 34,500 metres of diamond drilling in 98 diamond drill holes have been completed. The Company has also defined additional drill targets across the entire land package that warrant drill testing.

The known mineralized footprint at Buck Main shows strong near-surface grade continuity and currently measures over 1.1 kilometres in strike length and 700 metres in width. Latest drill testing in 2023 intersected mineralization outside the known footprint, supporting the zone’s further potential for expansion.

Location & Infrastructure

• The ~52,000 hectare tenure package is located just 10 kilometres south of the town of Houston in central British Columbia.
• The closest regional airport is in Smithers, located ~60 kilometres to the northwest along the Yellowhead Highway (Hwy 16).
• The property lies in a mining-friendly jurisdiction with excellent infrastructure, including electrical and gas utilities, airports, railways, highways and excellent road access.
• The property is located west of Newmont’s past producing Equity Silver Mine, and north of Imperial Metals’ Huckleberry copper mine, which was in operation until 2016 and is currently on care and maintenance.
• The Buck Project shows geological similarity to Artemis Gold’s Blackwater Gold Mine, located around 170 km to the southeast, which is currently under construction and expects to be in production by late 2024.

Geology

The Buck property is predominantly underlain by volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks of the regionally prospective Late Cretaceous Kasalka Group, host to other significant deposits such as Blackwater, Capoose and Newton. Regionally, it forms part of the Nechako-Chilcotin Plateau in the Skeena Arch; a region that represents strong, widespread, subduction-related metallogeny.

The most advanced target, Buck Main, hosts a large, altered volcanic breccia system that contains widespread gold, silver and zinc mineralization. The complex intermediate-sulfidation epithermal-related hydrothermal system produced three main styles of mineralization, including: 1) high-grade gold and silver associated with quartz + carbonate + pyrite + sphalerite veins and veinlets hosted in volcaniclastic rocks and sediments, 2) bulk-tonnage style gold, silver and zinc associated with disseminated and clotted sphalerite + pyrite hosted in dacitic lapilli tuffs, and 3) near-surface, sphalerite cemented hydrothermal breccias. These mineralization styles are interpreted to be genetically related, resulting from the focusing of epithermal-related fluids along northwest oriented structures and along the margins of porphyryitic dykes with early intra-mineral timing.

Sun Summit has drilled over 34,000 metres in 98 diamond drill holes at Buck Main since 2020 exploring the extents of the mineralized zone. Drilling at Buck Main has intersected broad, near-surface, bulk tonnage-style disseminated gold-silver-zinc mineralization. Drill highlights* include:

• 0.96 g/t Au, 5.1 g/t Ag, 0.2% Zn over 44 m (BK20-001)
• 0.89 g/t Au, 10.7 g/t Ag, 1.26% Zn over 40.5 m (BK20-012)
• 1.07 g/t Au, 5.5 g/t Ag, 0.65% Zn over 109 m (BK21-017)
• 0.67 g/t Au, 4.4 g/t Ag, 0.46% Zn over 187 m (BK21-032)
• 1.02 g/t Au, 10.8 g/t Ag, 1.17% Zn over 54 m (BK21-032)
• 0.71 g/t Au, 5.6 g/t Ag, 0.62% Zn over 187 m (BK21-033)
• 0.68 g/t Au, 4.8 g/t Ag, 0.46% Zn over 175.3 m (BK21-038)
• 0.77 g/t Au, 2.6 g/t Ag, 0.27% Zn over 67.6 m (BK22-067)
• 0.83 g/t Au, 9.2 g/t Ag, 0.21% Zn over 54.6 m (BK22-077)

Zones of significant high-grade gold-silver-zinc mineralization has also been intersected in multiple holes across the Buck Main area. Drill highlights* include:

• 49.6 g/t Au, 10.8 g/t Ag, 0.06% Zn over 1.5 m (BK20-012)
• 246 g/t Au, 66.7 g/t Ag, 0.02% Zn over 0.5 m (BK21-020)
• 41.9 g/t Au, 9.5 g/t Ag, 0.12% Zn over 1.0 m (BK21-024)
• 33.4 g/t Au, 17.4 g/t Ag, 0.15% Zn over 1.0 m (BK21-026)
• 31.3 g/t Au, 37.0 g/t Ag, 3.68% Zn over 1.0 m (BK21-035)
• 26.5 g/t Au, 199.0 g/t Ag, 0.14% Zn over 1.0 m (BK22-069)
• 38.0 g/t Au, 137.0 g/t Ag, 5.9% Zn over 1.1 m (BK22-083)

* Note: Drill intercepts are measured downhole and are not true widths.

Recent drilling results emphasize strong expansion possibilities along the northern and western boundaries of known mineralization, along with promising depth potential in areas where prior drilling has been limited. The known mineralized footprint currently measures over 1.1 kilometres in strike length, 700 metres in width, with mineralization open in all directions.

Click to download select drill hole intercepts from the Buck Main zone

CR Porphyry Target

The CR target, on the western side of of the Buck Project, can be accessed by the all-season Morice River Forest Service Road (FSR) which accesses commercial timber licenses and leads south to Imperial Metal’s Huckleberry Mine.

The zone is characterized by porphyry-style copper-molybdenum mineralization and alteration with proximal mineralized breccias. The most significant drill intercepts are reported from the CR property’s South Zone, which includes:

• 168 metres at 0.37% Cu, 0.017% Mo (8-176 metres, DDH CR07-14⁴)
• 68 metres at 0.50% Cu, 0.015% Mo (14-83 metres, DDH CR05-03⁴)
• 105 metres at 0.35% Cu, 0.024% Mo (bottom 195-300 metres, ending in 0.5% Cu, DDH CR07-15⁴)

The CR property is underlain mainly by a sequence of Jurassic andesitic to rhyolitic tuffs, flows and volcaniclastic rocks of the Telkwa Formation of the Hazelton Group cut by intrusive dykes and stocks of variable porphyritic textures. Granodiorite and quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusions are associated with Cu-Mo porphyry-style mineralization at two zones: North Zone and South Zone. The South Zone is better exposed at surface and has been partially delineated by historical diamond drilling, whereas the North Zone is variably till-covered and was drill tested with two holes for the first time by Teck in 2019. Less well-understood vein, breccia and skarn showings have been delineated across the property. 

Rock sample highlights from the 2023 exploration program include:

• 1.00% Cu & 3.2 g/t Ag, rhyolite/andesite breccia with strong silicification and copper oxide alteration (sample J031024)
• 0.94% Cu & 4.1 g/t Ag, similar to sample J031024, strongly Cu-oxidized rhyolite (sample J030700)
• 0.64% Cu & 8.1 g/t Ag, drusy quartz veins with disseminated chalcopyrite and strong copper oxides in epidote altered rhyolite (sample J030681)
• 0.39% Cu & 2.1 g/t Ag & 81 g/t Mo, hydrothermal breccia with disseminated pyrite ± chalcopyrite-molybdenite and moderate Cu oxides (sample J030756)

Many targets remain to be tested. Future work will focus on expansion of the east-west corridor at the South Zone by drill testing at depth and along strike where there is significant potential to expand the mineralized footprint into untested areas of the large chargeability anomaly. A large North Zone IP chargeability high anomaly remains largely untested and further assessment is required to plan drilling on the middle and north segments. A gap of approximately 850 metres separates the chargeability anomalies of the North and South zones and requires additional survey to examine any linkages between the two zones.

Maps & Figures

Reports

Photo Gallery

Disclaimer

This information has been approved by Sun Summit’s Vice President Exploration, Ken MacDonald, P. Geo., a “Qualified Person” as defined in National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators. He has also verified the data disclosed, including sampling, analytical and test data, underlying the technical information.