A drilling operation in Vernon to try and find gold has made significant progress after new drill data from 2024 was unearthed.
The Ximen Mining Company's Brett epithermal gold project broke ground in August of 2024. The 20,000 hectare area west of Vernon in the Bouleau Lake/Tahaetkun Mountain region has been owned by Ximen since 2013, with the last decade being spent mapping, surveying and permitting the area.
With new 2024 drill data, the company noticed a sudden change in the thickness of volcanic layers, which matched fault zones seen in the drill cores.
These faults are important because they host much of the gold.
One fault is in the Main Zone, where mining has already taken place, and another is in the West Zone, where new drilling found areas with gold in silica veins, which are mineral-filled cracks in rock, composed of silica in the form of quartz. These veins often form when hot, mineral-rich fluids move through rock fractures and then cool and solidify. In gold exploration, silica veins are important because they can host gold and other valuable minerals, making them a key target for mining.
Lab tests are being conducted to determine the exact gold content in the drill samples, but the new data is a positive step in understanding the project system and its role in hosting gold deposits.
Ximen is a publicly listed company trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, at 12 cents a share as of Feb. 12. Headquartered in Vancouver, Ximen's flagship project is an underground gold mine in the Nelson area.
Canada ranks fourth globally in total gold production (6.6 per cent) as of 2022. The $13.2 billion production value in 2022 makes the metal one of the most valuable mined in the country.
