Lewiston at a Glance
The Lewiston Project is located south of the Wind River Mountain Range in west-central Wyoming. The project site is located approximately 65 kilometers southeast of Lander, Wyoming (Figure 1.1) in Fremont County and is composed of both private land and public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
- 14,000 acres (5,665 hectares) of active BLM mining claims, including 58 acres (23 hectares) of patented claims at Hidden Hand.
- >10 km mineralized shear zone trend.
- Relevant Gold’s Lewiston project claims include the historic Hidden Hand, Burr, Goodhope, and Lone Pine mines.
- Historic reported samples include 1,690 oz/ton Au; Relevant Gold rock chip samples up to 62 g/t Au + 8.1% Cu.
- Arsenic (As), Antimony (Sb), Tungsten (W) and Copper (Cu) enriched shear zones that historically have reported significant high-grade bonanza style gold within the shear structures and associated veining.
- Relevant Gold has two permitted drill targets at Lewiston with a third permit pending.
- Click here to view the NI43-101 technical report for this project.
Exploration and Development Timeline
2023 Exploration Plan
A 1,500-metre core drilling program is planned for 2023 within the northern Lewiston project area.
The Heavy Hand and Northstar areas are previously undrilled targets lying along a 2-kilometer-long, 500-meter-wide corridor laced by multiple mineralized shear zones.
Numerous rock-chip samples in this area have returned high-grade gold assays (ranging from below the detection limit to 62.4 g/t gold) from the surface.
This initial drill program is designed as a proof-of-concept program to test: A) alteration and mineralization profiles between sub-parallel shear zones; B) depth to sulfide mineralization below the oxidized zone; C) structural architecture of shears; and D) occurrence of shear-parallel and cross-cutting extensional quartz-sulfide veining.
Early Exploration at Lewiston
Field reconnaissance, mapping, and sampling of the Lewiston Project were performed by Big Rock Exploration, LLC, on behalf of Relevant Gold Corp. between 2019 and 2021.
Multiple shear zone orientations and brecciated fold hinges were identified in the Lewiston Project and demonstrated spatial associations with alteration and mineralization. Mapping within the project area outlined a regional scale anastomosing shear system with at least two distinct shear orientations:
- A dominant system of NE-striking shear zones cross-cut the entire project area, demonstrating chlorite alteration
- A later or coeval, widespread set of E-W striking shear zones and altered fracture zones hosting silica-epidote-sulfide alteration
2022 rock chip samples were collected within the project area. Sample assay values range from detection limit to 62 g/t Au, including 13 samples >1 g/t Au (6.4% of sample suite) and 29 samples >0.25 g/t Au (14.3% of sample suite)
Geology and Mineralization
There are two historic mining districts in the region: the Lewiston District and the Atlantic City/South Pass district. Both mining districts are in a belt of Archean rocks and saw periodic activity from the 1860s to the 1940s. Since that time, the districts have seen only limited exploration and artisanal mining. In the Atlantic City/South Pass District, several gold mines were developed, including the most productive, the Carissa Mine. The Carissa Mine produced over 100,000 oz, with historic estimates range 50,000-180,000oz (Jamison, 1911; Hausel, 1991). The Lewiston District had smaller historic development but had reported very high gold grades.
The Lewiston Project lies within the South Pass Greenstone Belt (SPGB), an Archean (3,875 to 2,750 Ma) greenstone belt located on the southern flank of the Wind River Range in the Southern Wyoming Province. The geological characteristics of the SPGB are consistent with other world-class orogenic gold systems.
The Lewiston district consists of a large package of metagreywacke from the Miners Delight Formation. Like the western Atlantic City District (Section 6), there are mafic-ultramafic rocks intermixed with the sedimentary rocks. Adjacent to the Miners Delight Formation on the east side is the Roundtop Mountain Greenstone sequence, but it is poorly exposed. The district is bound to the east by the extensive Lewis Lake Batholith that consists of calc-alkaline granitoids and gneisses. There are localized Tertiary cover rocks in the project area consisting of sandstones, conglomerates, and gravels.
Historically, the gold mineralization occurs within shear zones with multigenerational quartz veining, with high-grade free gold associated with oxidized quartz veins. The Lewiston Project has at least two major fold orientations as well as two orientations of shearing. The primary shear corridor is oriented NE-SW with a strong lineation plunging to the NE along the shear fabric. This, along with an intersecting E-W shear zone, may create structural conduits for goldbearing fluids to travel along and mineralize the shear zone and surrounding wallrock near reactive horizons. Mineralization is seen as gold bearing quartz veins with Arsenopyrite + Pyrite + Chlorite +/- Sheelite within the shear zone. Outside the core of the shear zones, there is brittle stockwork silicification + chloritization.
Lewiston News
