The prospecting history at the Clear Creek Property dates back to the early 1900’s, however modern exploration efforts did not commence until the late 1970’s. Bema Industries, working on contract from Canada Tungsten Corporation, was the first company to recognize potentially significant gold mineralization in 1978. Since this initial effort, various companies have conducted exploration programs including Gold Rite Mining Corp., Noranda Exploration Ltd., Ivanhoe Goldfields Ltd., First Dynasty Mines Ltd., Kennecott Canada Inc., Newmont Exploration Limited, Redstar Resources Corporation, and StrataGold Corporation (now Victoria Gold Corp.).
Noranda Exploration Ltd. conducted extensive soil and rock chip sampling, ground geophysical surveys, trenching, road building, and a six-hole reverse circulation (“RC”) drilling program in 1991 and 1992.
In 1995, Kennecott Canada Inc. completed drilling, soil sampling and 320 m of bulldozer trenching and conducted a 27 hole RC program that successfully identified an east-west trending zone (1,200 m by 200 m) to 65 m below surface.
In 1998, Newmont Exploration Limited conducted an airborne magnetics and radiometrics geophysical survey over the Property. The interpretation of this data by Newmont suggested that the Eiger, Saddle, Josephine and Pukelman stocks may have been part of a single larger intrusive body, and that the Rhosgobel and Far stocks were independent of this larger intrusive body.
Historic drilling by Redstar Resources Corporation on the Bear Paw Breccia zone included two diamond drill holes in 1999; and nine HQ-diameter diamond drill holes totaling 2,000 metres. The best intercept from the Bear Paw Breccia zone during this program returned 2.3 g/t Au over 31.8 m.
In 2006, StrataGold Corporation conducted a detailed trenching and soil sampling program on the Bear Paw Breccia and Contact zones. Infill sampling was also conducted to follow-up on geophysical and historical gold anomalies identified by previous property operators.
Historic exploration programs have identified several zones of Au-As±Bi anomalies on the Property, seven of which have been drilled with varying degrees of rigour since the 1970’s. The bulk of GP’s 2010-2011 exploration efforts focused on the Bear Paw and Contact zones.
Drilling at Clear Creek has encountered both thick, low-grade zones (e.g. 42.68 m of 1.87 g/t Au from 1.52 m, CC10-07, Bear Paw), and narrow high-grade zones (e.g. 1.52 m of 137.50 g/t Au from 3.05 m, CC10-22, Contact). The most significant results from the three main zones are shown in the tables below.
Golden Predator’s 2010 program included drilling 42 holes (combination of diamond and RC) The Bear Paw, Contact, Saddle and Josephine Zones were targeted during this program, and gold mineralization was intersected in all zones except for Josephine.
The 2011 Bear Paw program, was designed to infill and expand the envelope of mineralized breccias that were tested during the 2010 drilling program. The Contact drilling program was designed to further test the mineralized sheeted vein system drilled in 2010.
The 2011 exploration program included drilling 18 HQ diameter diamond drill holes, and a soil sampling program consisting of 1,026 samples. Four diamond drill holes (CC11-043 to CC11-046) were completed at Contact and 14 diamond drill holes (CC11-047 to CC11-060) were completed at Bear Paw. All 18 drill holes encountered gold mineralization.