Exploration History

Exploration on the Nitra Property dates from the 1900s when Placer gold claims were staked and prospected. Documented exploration on the ground now covered by the Nitra Property includes: placer testing, soil sampling and trenching by Dan Klippert (Hard Rock Exploration) and Breakaway Exploration.

From 1994 to early 2000’s placer miner, Dan Klippert, developed the access to the Seattle Creek area and tested two unnamed tributaries to Seattle Creek. Testing found that gold distribution is erratic, however, the coarse gold pockets with nuggets up to 7¼ ounces were found.

Concurrently to the placer exploration, Klippert conducted hard rock exploration on unnamed tributaries to Seattle Creek. He staked the DCK claim block in this area. From 1996 to 2000, Klippert explored the DCK claims with soil surveys, trenching and rock sampling.

In 2012, Breakaway Exploration Management collected ridge and spur soil samples in the area and identified a number of Au-in-soil anomalies. This work was never followed up.

In 2017, Taku Gold Corp. collected 538 soil samples from 21 ridge and spur traverses.

Banyan Gold Corp. staked the Nitra claims in 2019 and followed up with a soil sample survey over 107 line kilometers in 2020.

In 2021, Banyan Gold Corp. followed up on 2020 soil surveys with another soil survey covering approximately 20 square kilometers that infilled and expanded the prior grid. 

In 2022, Banyan followed up on prior soils with an additional 6,575 soils over 164-line km, excavated a single 424-m trench, and drilled 4 diamond holes at this target. They also conducted property-scale airborne geophysical surveys of the eastern half of their property, as well as a LiDAR elevation and orthophoto survey of the western half of their property.

Capsule Geology

To date, there has not been any property-scale geological mapping completed. The Nitra property lies in western Selwyn Basin. The major stratigraphic units making up the Selwyn Basin in the McQuesten River area are the Late Proterozoic to Cambrian Hyland Group, the Devonian to Mississippian Earn Group and the Mississippian Keno Hill Quartzite. The Earn Group and Keno Hill Quartzite are intruded by a number of mid-Triassic mafic sills of metre-scale to hundred-metre-scale thickness.

In the Mayo region, the Jurassic-Cretaceous Robert Service thrust juxtaposes Hyland Group rocks against the Keno Hill Quartzite and the underlying Earn Group rocks. North of the Robert Service thrust, the Tombstone thrust sheet was thrust northward and protrudes structurally beneath the RST. Both these structures were in turn folded by a period of transpressional deformation creating the McQuesten Antiform, which plunges to the southwest. With waning deformation across the orogen by the mid-Cretaceous, emplacement of a series of felsic to intermediate plutonic suites occurred between 112 and 90 M. A second suite of intrusive rocks, the McQuesten intrusions of 64-67 Ma locally exploited the existing structural weakness in the axis of the McQuesten Antiform.

Exploration on the Nitra Property dates from the 1900s when Placer gold claims were staked and prospected. Documented exploration includes: placer testing, soil sampling and trenching. In 2020 and 2021, Banyan Gold Corp conducted extensive soil soil sampling programs on the property, which lead to the delineation of a number of multi-element soil geochemical anomalies.