TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – British Columbia-focused explorer Seabridge Gold has completed the first resource estimate for the Iron Cap Lower Zone at its 100%-owned KSM project, in north-western British Columbia.

The Iron Cap Lower Zone was, after Deep Kerr, the second core zone identified at the massive project, which was considered to be one of the largest undeveloped copper/gold deposits left in the world.

Seabridge on Wednesday reported that the grade of the Iron Cap Lower Zone’s estimated 164-million-tonne inferred resource averaged 0.59 g/t gold and 0.27% copper, containing 3.1-million ounces of gold and 961-million pounds of copper, a significantly higher grade than the Iron Cap resource which lay above the lower zone.

The core zones were the deeper focused parts of porphyry deposits, characterised by higher fluid flux and abundant veining that generally resulted in higher grades than the shallower margins of the porphyry deposits usually associated with them. Since 2012, Seabridge had been successfully exploring for core zones beneath the known porphyry deposits at KSM with the objective of enhancing grades and improving project economics.

Last year’s drill programme added 431-million tonnes of inferred resources at Deep Kerr and the Iron Cap Lower Zone, together containing an estimated 5.4-million ounces of gold and 4.2-billion pounds of copper.

During 2014, Seabridge’s outstanding shares increased by only 1.36-million common shares, which helped the company fulfil its principle of increasing resource ounces of gold a share.

In two years, the company’s core zone programme had added 945-million tonnes of inferred resources at an average grade of 0.38 g/t gold and 0.49% copper, containing about 11.3-million ounces of gold and 10.3-billion pounds of copper. Given its history of successfully raising inferred resources at KSM to higher categories, Seabridge was confident that the observable continuity of these new core zone discoveries would support upgrading resources with further drilling.

“This first resource estimate at the Iron Cap Lower Zone is further confirmation that, until recently, we have only been seeing the tops of KSM’s deposits, with better grades below. Fortunately, the location, size and configuration of these deeper core zones appear to support extraction by the most cost-effective underground mining methods.

“This is especially true of the Iron Cap Lower Zone which is located close to key proposed infrastructure, including planned tunnels, which could be used to facilitate mining. Given these factors, along with the significantly higher metal values, we are very confident that our core zone programme has the potential to achieve its objective of improving project economics,” Seabridge chairperson and CEO Rudi Fronk said.

He added that exploration of the Iron Cap Lower Zone was still in its infancy.

“We think this deposit is likely to get much bigger and [present] potentially higher grades as well. We will test this hypothesis in this year’s drilling using the funds from this month’s financing. Perhaps, more importantly, we are learning how and where to find better material and we now think that our greatest opportunity may lie under the very large Mitchel deposit. That is now a key target for the 2015 drill season.”

Seabridge earlier this month announced that it had arranged $14.2-million bought deal flow-through equity financing.