selena
The Selena property is a shallow-oxide, silver-gold-lead-zinc discovery made by Ridgeline in 2020. The property hosts a zoned Ag-Au-Pb-Zn Carbonate Replacement Deposit (CRD) with potentially open-pittable Ag-Au at Chinchilla, Juniper, Revival and Broken Egg as well as deeper high-grade potential at the CRD Zone. The project is located within the historic Limousine Butte district of the south Carlin-Trend with the claim block comprised of 467 contiguous federal lode claims totaling 39km². Historic and currently producing mines in the area including the Bald Mountain, Alligator Ridge, Yankee, Illipah and Golden Butte deposits. Freeport – McMoRan entered into a US $33M earn-in agreement with Falcon Butte Minerals on the adjacent Butte Valley Cu-Au porphyry project in October 2022.
On August 22, 2024, the company announce that it had entered into a transaction with South32 Limited (“South32” )., pursuant to which South32 can incur a minimum of US$ 10 million (of which US$ 2 million is guaranteed) in qualifying work expenditures over an initial five-year term to earn an initial 60% interest in Selena. South32 will retain further options to increase its interest to a total 80% interest for an additional $10 million in qualifying expenditures as well as providing Ridgeline with a debt facility that the company may draw upon to cover its portion of exploration and development costs through commercial production. Ridgeline will remain operator of the project and collect a 10% management fee through the first five years of the earn-in agreement.
Trenching, surface sampling and ~10,000m of RC and diamond core drilling have defined a mineralized footprint that outcrops at surface and extends 3.7+km to the E-W and over 2.5 km to the N-S with mineralization open in multiple directions. The project is located ~1km to the west of the Butte Valley copper-gold porphyry system (Freeport-McMoRan JV), which Ridgeline interprets as the primary source to mineralizing CRD fluids across the property. Highlight results from drilling at the Chinchilla, Juniper and Chinchilla Sulfide zones include:
Chinchilla
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SE22-045: 32.5 m grading 153.42 g/t Ag, 2.51% Pb, 1.60% Zn, 0.09 g/t Au, starting at 235 m true vertical depth (“TVD”) (Figure 1 & Figure 2)
- Including 6.1 m grading 480.52 g/t Ag, 12.0% Pb, and 6.39% Zn, 0.14 g/t Au in SE22-045
- Including 0.7 m grading 1,347.73 g/t Ag, 28.89% Pb and 12.02% Zn, 0.11 g/t Au
- SE21-025: 44.2m grading 123.2 g/t Ag, 0.1 g/t Au, 1.5% Pb and 0.6% Zn starting at 232m TVD
- SE21-024: 10.7m grading 194.0 g/t Ag, 0.3 g/t Au, 2.0% Pb and 1.7% Zn starting at 191m TVD
Juniper
- LB-072: 0.3 m grading 6,667 g/t (0.67%) Ag, 7.7 g/t Au, 1.6% Pb, 0.2% Zn and 1.0 m grading 2,467.2 g/t (0.25%) Ag, 5.1 g/t Au, 1.1% Pb, 1.4% Zn within 7.7 m grading 725.2 g/t Ag, 1.5 g/t Au, 1.3% Pb, 0.9% Zn starting at 15.5 m TVD
Chinchilla Sulfide
- SE22-037: 3.0m grading 40.2 g/t Ag, 3.0 g/t Au, 0.2% Pb and 6.8% Zn within 15.3m grading 12.3 g/t Ag, 0.8 g/t Au, 0.07% Pb, 1.7% Zn starting at 731m TVD
Broken Egg
- SEBP-001: 0.9m grading 2.4 g/t Au, starting at surface (backpack drillhole)
QUICK FACTS
- Carbonate Replacement Style (CRD) Silver-Gold-Lead-Zinc
- Distal Disseminated Silver-Gold
- Open-Pit, Silver – Gold (Oxide)
- Underground, Silver-Gold-Lead-Zinc
- Kerademex, Nevada Pacific Gold, Newmont, Placer Dome, US Gold Corp.
- Soil sampling, surface rock chips, trench sampling and a historical biogeochemical survey (sagebrush).
- Gravity, Magnetics and IP Surveys
- Mississippian to Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone overlying Mississippian to Devonian age Diamond Peak, Chainman, Joanna, Pilot, Guilmette and Simonson formations
- 1:62,000 scale geology map, reconnaissance outcrop mapping
- Ridgeline – Thirty-Eight (38) reverse circulation drillholes completed in 2020-2022 totaling 8,285 meters
- Historical operators – Kerademex & US Gold Corp. drilled 90+ shallow historic holes.
