Antelope Creek Gold Corporation, a subsidiary of Black Mammoth Metals Corporation (TSXV: BMM) (OTC: LQRCF), signed into an option agreement with a private vendor to pick up the Callaghan gold property in Nevada.
The company has already completed a sampling program and associated due diligence work and has already expanded the property through staking, according to a Friday press release.
The Callaghan Property now comprises 45 Federal lode mining claims (930 acres, 376 hectares) on BLM land. It lies along the 120-kilometer Austin-Tonopah trend of gold occurrences, deposits, and mines, including Quito, Round Mountain, and Northumberland.
This property is considered prospective for Carlin-type gold mineralization. The company’s Quito property, a past-producing mine, is also on this trend.
The Callaghan Property lies within an erosional window known as the Callaghan Window. This exposes highly prospective Lower Plate Paleozoic sedimentary rocks.
These rocks on the property have experienced strong alteration from gold, arsenic, antimony, and mercury-bearing hydrothermal fluids. The property features near-surface gold mineralization in several historic drill holes at the Cottonwood Canyon area. Reports estimate approximately 50,000 oz at 0.5 g/t, hosted in Upper Plate Paleozoic sedimentary rocks.
Exploratory drilling in the Rast area has focused on widely spaced and shallow locations over an area covered by shallow alluvium. Drilling has intersected strong pathfinder elements and sporadic gold intercepts, but geochemical and structural data indicate that the area’s potential remains largely untested.
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Drilling campaigns have produced mixed results
At Cottonwood Canyon, historic drilling has concentrated on near-surface, open-pit type gold mineralization hosted in Upper Plate rocks. While these Upper Plate rocks have been explored, they are generally less desirable for deeper exploration compared to Lower Plate rocks, as they tend to host gold in lower concentrations and are less likely to contain significant deposits at depth.
Several exploration companies have drilled over 80 holes in the Rast-Cottonwood area since the mid-1970s.
In the early 1980s, Kerr McGee drilled 37 holes in the Cottonwood area. This roughly outlined gold mineralization in Upper Plate rocks. Furthermore, between 2010 and 2011, Miranda Gold and Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE: K) drilled in the Cottonwood target area.
The Rast area, which includes the historic mercury mine, has seen approximately 35 holes drilled since the 1980s. Past exploration has included surface mapping, rock-chip sampling, airborne magnetics, gravity surveys, and soil sampling.
Under the terms of the option agreement, Antelope Creek may acquire the Callaghan property through $1.2 million in cash payments. When it’s finished, Antelope Creek will pay a 1 per cent Net Smelter Return (NSR) on all claims to the Vendor.
This is the latest in a streak of merger and acquisition activity for the company.
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Black Mammoth has had multiple acquisitions
In 2024, Black Mammoth Metals acquired both the America Mine gold property in San Bernardino, CA, and the Quito gold property in Lander County, NV. An approximate 4 square kilometer area has been identified as hydrothermally altered at the company’s Happy Cat gold property in Lander County, NV.
Structural modelling indicates that the density of this alteration resembles those found in other Carlin-type deposits in northern Nevada. These are similar to those presently being mined by Calibre Mining Corp (TSX: CXB) (OTCQB: CXBFF). The mineralization at Pan Mine often involves hydrothermal alteration zones with gold hosted in sedimentary rocks.
Black Mammoth also holds controlling interest in the Blanco Creek gold property in the Elk Creek Mining District, central Idaho.
This property features three historic underground mines along 3,550 meters (11,644 feet) of strike on the northeast-trending regional Blanco Shear Zone.
Exploration by two previous operators identified a geological target for the Blanco Creek property estimated at 1.70 to 2.48 million tons, grading 0.20 to 0.33 oz/ton Au (1.54 to 2.24 million tonnes, grading 6.85 to 11.31 g/tonne Au).
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