Omineca Mining and Metals Ltd. (TSXV: OMM) (OTCQB: OMMSF) has announced the discovery of a hard rock (“lode”) gold zone from its 2025 winter drill program at the Wingdam gold exploration project in the Cariboo Mining District of British Columbia. The initial gold intercepts, drilled 500 meters west of and at depths lower than the Wingdam underground paleoplacer gold project, validate the company's assertion of a proximal lode source for the rich paleoplacer gold found beneath Lightning Creek.
The discovery comes 165 years after placer gold was first found in Lightning Creek, and it supports the theory that the source lies downstream of the placer deposits. Recent evidence from underground workings indicates that Lightning Creek flowed from west to east when the gold was eroded into the valley, opposite its present direction. This reversed flow direction is attributed to isostatic depression caused by the Cordilleran glacial ice sheet, which also caused the Fraser River to change course around 760,000 years ago and Lightning Creek to reverse about 200,000 years ago.
Highlights from the drill program include WD25-41, which returned 4.84 g/t gold over 1.07 meters from 158.98 to 160.05 meters, and WD25-42, which returned 1.25 g/t gold over 2.0 meters from 345.00 to 347.00 meters. The highest-grade intercept was found in amygdaloidal basalt associated with the Slide Mountain Terrane, a sequence of oceanic crustal rocks that are structurally linked to many of British Columbia's orogenic gold camps, including the Barkerville Gold camp 30 kilometers east, Cassiar, Bralorne, and Greenwood districts.
The company's exploration thesis is based on the well-known relationship between ophiolites and orogenic gold deposits. The Slide Mountain Terrane is preserved along the Eureka Thrust Fault near Wingdam, and the recent discovery confirms the presence of hydrothermal gold mineralization associated with this fault. According to Stephen Kocsis, P.Geo., the independent qualified person for the release, these results are significant in explaining the incidence of autochthonous placer gold in the paleoplacer deposit.
The 2025 drill program completed 3,091.9 meters in six NQ diamond drill holes, with core logged and sampled by TerraLogic Exploration and analysis by AGAT Laboratories. The program targeted downdip extensions of mineralization from the 2024 season, particularly in ultramafic units intersected in hole WD24-37, which had anomalous gold values. WD25-41 was a follow-up hole that intersected the most anomalous gold result to date on the property, with localized fracturing and calcite-quartz veins containing disseminated pyrite. WD25-42 targeted a magnetic high outlined by a UAV survey and intersected mineralization in lithic wacke with quartz veinlets and disseminated pyrrhotite and pyrite.
This discovery is a major step forward for Omineca, as it provides a potential source for the rich placer gold that has been recovered from the Wingdam underground project. The company plans to focus its next phase of exploration on the immediate vicinity of this new discovery, with details to be announced once finalized. The implications are significant for the Cariboo Mining District, as it may open up new hard rock exploration targets in an area traditionally known for placer mining.
