Vancouver, British Columbia – HAWKEYE Gold & Diamond Inc. (the “Company” or “HAWKEYE”) (TSX.V-HAWK; Frankfurt Ticker: HGT; ISIN: CA42016R3027; WKN: A12A61): is pleased to announce it has entered into a Sale and Purchase Agreement (SAPA) with the vendor of the Keithley Creek Project (the “Property”) to acquire a 100% interest in the 3,600 hectare Property situated approximately 30 kilometres south of the Town of Barkerville, BC, Canada. The Property lies within the southeasterly-striking Snowshoe Group of the Barkerville Terrane. This is the geological formation that hosts Barkerville Gold Mines’ (“BGM”) current gold mine development and exploration projects, including the Yanks Peak prospects, and also hosts a number of historic to recent placer gold mines within and adjacent to the Property.
About the Barkerville-Cariboo District
Keithley Creek, named after its discoverer ‘Doc’ Keithley, was the one of the first major placer deposits of the Cariboo gold rush found in July 1860 and mining operations continued until 1998. Production from Keithley Creek was estimated at 275,000 ounces. Barkerville became the centre of the historic Cariboo gold rush following the 1861-1862 discoveries on Lightning Creek, Williams Creek and the surrounding area. The recorded production estimate from 1861-1987 reported more than 5,000,000 ounces of gold which included 3,800,000 ounces from placer operations and 1,230,000 ounces from lode mining. Recently, BGM, the principal property holder in the district, has announced resource definition on lode gold projects and large exploration programs focused along the Cariboo Break, a structural corridor aligned with the principal NW to SE-directed high strain zones in the Barkerville Terrane.
Message from the President
Mr. Greg Neeld, President & CEO states, “HAWKEYE is excited to be building its portfolio of properties in the Barkerville-Cariboo gold district. The acquisitions place HAWKEYE in a historical mining centre continuously productive for more than 150 years and with recent exploration successes and ongoing mine development activity. Our land position has increased to 8,644 hectares and we plan to acquire more claims in the Barkerville area. The Keithley Creek Property is on geological strike with known lode gold prospects and past-producing placer gold mines in multiple drainages. The Company has purchased the Property based on its favourable location, geology, structure and geophysical features. BGM is drilling 250,000 metres within two years and its success identifying greenfield drill targets points to increased potential and opportunity within the Barkerville-Cariboo gold district. We look forward to implementing our exploration program on the Property.”
The Keithley Creek Project
The Keithley Creek Project is situated seventeen (17) kilometres southwest of the historical Cariboo Hudson Mine and only ten (10) kilometres south of the Yanks Peak lode gold prospects on the north shore of Cariboo Lake within the Late Proterozoic to Paleozoic Snowshoe Group of the Barkerville Terrane. The Keithley and Harveys Ridge successions of the Snowshoe Group are comprised of quartzite, conglomerate, and sandstone with lesser volcanics, black slate and limestone, which have undergone multi-stage deformation with penetrative fabrics and regional metamorphism ranging from lower greenschist (chlorite) to amphibolite (garnet-staurolite) grade.
The lithologies are characterized by moderate to steeply dipping, southeasterly striking, locally overturned folds with northwesterly shear zones and plunging lineations, regional east-southeasterly striking thrust faults and later faulting along a general north-northeast direction. Gold mineralization to date is associated with quartz veins, iron carbonate (ankerite), and pyrite cutting amenable quartzite units of greenschist grade. Placer gold was derived from Tertiary age deep weathering of the vein deposits. Gold fineness exhibited a wide range consistent with multiple sources, or periods or styles of mineralization, including secondary precipitation.
The Property contains favorable geological units overprinted by extensive deformation on structural strike with known lode gold prospects and placer operations. The principal mineralization is associated with high strain zones and parallels low magnetic features from regional and detailed airborne geophysics tracing along Keithley Creek. This trend is parallel to the southeasterly-oriented regional feature (Cariboo Break) includes a number of known gold deposits, past hard rock and placer gold producers, and numerous bedrock occurrences. High strain zones and several thrust faults are mapped with Snowshoe Group rocks on the Property.
Previous work on the Property included geological mapping, airborne geophysics, and reconnaissance soil and stream geochemistry surveys. The Property exhibits geochemical anomalies for gold, arsenic, lead, copper and zinc. Gold and heavy metal anomalies in stream sediments are reported from the headwaters of Rollie and Ehle Creeks within the western claims of the Property. The Rollie (Duck) prospect located near the mouth of Rollie Creek was a past placer producer from 1896-1900. Base metal anomalies may be related to Kuroko or Besshi style volcanogenic (VMS) sources. Several known VMS occurrences are located 2-10 kilometres to the south-southeast of the Property.
Agreement Details
The Keithley Creek Property acquisition is subject to a $7,000.00 cash payment and the issuance of 50,000 shares and a further 250,000 share issuance should the project proceed to a pre-feasibility study. The acquisition is not subject to an NSR. The Sale and Purchase Agreement between HAWKEYE and the Vendor is subject to TSX approval.
HAWKEYE has a right of first refusal on certain other properties controlled by the Vendor within the historical Barkerville-Cariboo district.
Qualified Person
Greg Davison, M.Sc., P.Geo., Senior Technical Advisor to HAWKEYE is the Company’s designated Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (“NI 43-101″). Mr. Davison has prepared, reviewed and validated that the technical information contained within this release is accurate.
About HAWKEYE
HAWKEYE Gold & Diamond Inc. is a junior mineral exploration and development company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol HAWK and the Frankfurt Exchange under the ticker HGT; ISIN# CA42016R3027 and WKN# A12A61. HAWKEYE’s corporate mandate is to build strong asset growth and shareholder value through the acquisition of low-cost, high-potential cash flow and production opportunities with blue sky discovery potential, and to manage our business in an environmentally responsible manner while contributing to the local community and economy.