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 south-central British Columbia. The initial gold intercepts, drilled 500 meters west of and at depths lower than the elevation of 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 the Lightning Creek valley, and it provides a geological explanation for the autochthonous (close-distance) placer gold in the deposit. The highest grade intercept, 4.84 g/t gold over 1.07 meters in hole WD25-41, was found in a section of amygdaloidal basalt associated with the Slide Mountain Terrane, a sequence of ophiolitic rocks (ancient seafloor thrust upward) that are known to be structurally associated with many of British Columbia's orogenic gold deposits, including the Barkerville Gold camp 30 kilometers east, the Cassiar camp, the historic Bralorne camp, and the Greenwood Mining District.
The exploration thesis is based on changes in watershed flow direction caused by isostatic depression under the weight of the Cordilleran glacial ice sheet. This weight caused the Fraser River to switch from northerly flow to its present southern course some 760,000 years ago and, later, Lightning Creek to reverse from flowing east to flowing west. The reversed flow direction has been confirmed in Omineca's underground workings, where imbrication in gravel layers indicates the ancient flow was west to east, opposite to the present direction. This means the source of the placer gold lies downstream (west) of the deposits, at depths equivalent to or below the level of the underground placer workings.
During the 2025 drill program, a total of 3,091.9 meters was completed in six NQ diamond drill holes. The program followed up on mineralization found in 2024 and targeted downdip extensions of ultramafic units and the Eureka Thrust Fault. WD25-41, a downdip follow-up of WD24-37, intersected the most anomalous gold result to date on the property: 4.84 g/t gold from 158.98 to 160.05 meters, in a section with localized fracturing and calcite-quartz veins with disseminated pyrite. WD25-42, drilled from the same pad, intersected 1.25 g/t gold over 2.0 meters (345.00-347.00 meters) in a lithic wacke with quartz veinlets and minor pyrrhotite and pyrite.
The discovery of lode gold in close proximity to the underground paleoplacer at Wingdam confirms the potential for significant hard rock mineralization associated with the Eureka Thrust Fault. Omineca plans to ramp up investigation of hydrothermal gold mineralization in the immediate vicinity of this discovery. The next phase of exploration will focus on expanding the footprint of this new zone.
The 2025 drill program was managed by Newmac, with core logging and sampling by TerraLogic Exploration of Cranbrook, BC. A total of 1,978 drill core samples and 179 QA/QC samples were collected and analyzed by AGAT Laboratories of Calgary, AB, using fire assay and ICP-OES/MS methods. The true thickness of the mineralization is yet to be determined.
The scientific and technical information in this release has been prepared by Stephen Kocsis, P.Geo., an independent qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. Omineca's Wingdam project includes mineral tenures totaling 61,392 hectares and in excess of 15 linear kilometers of placer claims along the Lightning Creek valley. The company also holds the Fraser Canyon Project, which is slated to reinitiate development of an underground paleochannel for placer gold recovery.
