VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed Garibaldi Resources is stepping up its exploration efforts at its flagship Nickel Mountain base metals project, in north-west British Columbia's prolific Eskay Camp.

The Vancouver-based company advised on Friday that crews, including Full Force Drilling based in Peachland, British Columbia, have mobilised to start diamond drilling within the next several days at the historic E&L deposit, the Eskay Camp's only nickel/copper massive sulphide system, nearly 18 km south-west of Eskay Creek.

SJ Geophysics has, in the meantime, been carrying out ground-based loop electromagnetic geophysics to ensure even greater accuracy at targeting known nickel/copper-rich mineralised zones at the E&L deposit and the strong, broad versatile time-domain electromagnetic (VTEM) conductor estimated to begin within 20 m to 40 m below the deepest hole (122 m), drilled by Silver Standard in the mid-1960s.

Garibaldi's initial drill holes targeting the VTEM conductor will be drilled from the west and the east in a scissor pattern to ensure successful intersections of the yet unknown orientation of the anomaly in the third dimension.

"It has been nearly 50 years since drilling has been carried out at the top of Nickel Mountain, where massive sulphides were originally found in outcrop in the early 1960s. I commend our team of nickel sulphide experts for the exceptional work they have done to compile and reinterpret historic data while merging that with our own geological and geophysical data covering E&L and a potential multi-kilometre-long mineralised structural corridor,” said president and CEO Steve Regoci in a statement.

According to Garibaldi, all 12 Silver Standard holes drilled in the mid-1960s intersected nickel/copper mineralisation, highlighted by a 37.8-m interval in DDH-4-1966, which returned 1.3% nickel and 0.79% copper, including 5.9% nickel and 1.7% copper over 2.74 m near the bottom of the hole.

In total, Garibaldi controls one of the largest land positions among juniors in the Eskay Camp, with just over 200 km².