A small number of low-quality comments about Giga’s Turnagain prospect -
I have traversed its access road many, many times - well over a dozen. This is the fabled Cassiar Highway, 450.1 miles of true remoteness that, if not so wild and untraveled as my own Denali Highway,
still is over three times its length. Other than the “anchor” communities at each end, there are two settlements, Native villages, its entire length: Iskut, a couple of hundred people, and Dease Lake, about 450. Dease Lake is the jumping-off site for the deposit, which is about 45 miles ENE of the village. There exists an extremely rough track that is usable some summer months of about 60 miles long; nothing that is unusual in this part of the world.
Most beneficial - hardly hyperbole to call this a binary Go/NoGo benefit - to any such mining operations here is that about five years ago, Hydro BC pushed through an extremely large (1100 kVA? I forget and won’t look right now) power line in this region (great for would-be Whooperdjardjers along the Cassiar, but I am digressing to my favorite topic.....).
Any such nickel occurrences would be within the Cache Creek Complex, a series of ultramafics with typical dunite, pyroxenite and peridotite, typically
and especially in this region highly serpentinized. Hydrothermal fluids associated possibly with the tectonic activity that caused the uplift of these very deep-origin rocks do normally alter the olivines and peridotites to form serpentine and have a propensity to concentrate associated nickel into some higher-grade material. More importantly for the history of mining in this region, the characteristic mineral that forms such serpentinization is chrysotile - that which is more familiarly known as asbestos. For many decades this remote part of British Columbia produced the richest and highest-grade asbestos in the world. This is something I would characterize as
having the potential to be a very large negative: if present, it could complicate the mining, separating and waste processing to such an extent as to doom the project; this is, however, a consideration for any non-lateritic nickel operation worldwide.
For any interested in where this is, here is a snap from one of my roadbooks. The prospect is close to the “M” in the “Cassiar Mountains” located at the top of this snap-your-neck-sideways photo.
