Block Cave Footprint Assessments for the Deep Kerr Deposit, BC
Dr Ross Hammett (Principal, Senior Civil/Mining Engineer - Golder Associated Ltd.), Mr David Sprott (Principal, Senior Mining Engineer - Golder Associates Ltd.), Mr Peter Williams (Senior Vice President Technical Services - Seabridge Gold Inc.)
The Deep Kerr deposit is located within the Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) property northwest of Stewart, British Columbia, and is 100% owned by Seabridge Gold Inc. The KSM Project is one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in the world, with proven and probable reserves totalling 38.2 million ounces of gold and 9.9 billion pounds of copper. In 2013, Seabridge found a new deposit, Deep Kerr, which has the highest metal values discovered at KSM to date.
Seabridge retained Golder Associates Ltd. to undertake the conceptual underground block cave mining studies for Deep Kerr. The studies included assessments of the caveability of the rockmass and estimates of cave fragmentation size and the required footprint size to initiate caving. This paper presents the engineering approach employed to define potential block cave elevations and footprints using Geovia PCBC software. Three footprints were identified, each with 500 m column extraction. The results were then used to report the March 2014 mineral resources for Deep Kerr.
