Tudor Gold President, Ken Konkin (who was a key figure in the development of the now Newmont Brucejack Mine just a few kilometers south of Treaty Creek) is an expert in both large scale systems and geology in the Golden Triangle.  He has often spoken of the importance of the “frequency for occurrence”, “frequency for distribution”, and “structural traps” of world class hydrothermal systems that create a predictable “rhythm”.

The Treaty Creek property is located within one of the largest hydrothermal systems in the world. The Sulphurets Hydrothermal System (SHS) contains numerous world scale deposits including the high-grade Brucejack mine (opened 2017 by Pretivm) and Seabridge’s KSM which boasts the largest undeveloped gold deposit (by reserves) in the world, and numerous mineralized zones on Treaty Creek. He’s stated that the SHS is a perfect example and refers to its many deposits as a “string of pearls……just really big pearls!”

Of the mineralized zones, four key target zones including the Goldstorm, are projected to to be continuations of the "string of pearls".

Treaty Creek map: Click to enlarge

The Treaty Creek Property contains the Goldstorm Deposit and is hosted in Early Jurassic intrusions within surrounding Late Triassic and Early Jurassic volcano-sedimentary rocks that are part of the Stikine volcanic island-arc terrane. Arc magmatism across Stikinia and Quesnellia led to a multi-episodic, Late Triassic to Early Jurassic metallogenic event that generated porphyry intrusion-related mineral deposits, regionally. The Treaty Creek Property and Goldstorm Deposit are situated both spatially and temporally relative to the unconformable contact between Upper Triassic Stuhini Group and Jurassic Hazelton Group. The Hazelton Group consists primarily of andesitic to basaltic volcanics and volcaniclastic with a range of fine to coarse clastic sediments. In some cases, basal Hazelton units include granitoid-cobble conglomerate and interbedded quartz-rich arkose, derived from exhumed Triassic plutons. The lower Hazelton Group is a latest- Triassic to Toarcian arc-related andesitic sequence with local felsic centres. The associated Tatogga and Texas Creek Suite intrusions are key mineralizing agents for porphyry copper, gold, and volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit formation in northwestern Stikinia.

In the Treaty Creek Property area, the Hazelton Group consists of the Jack, Betty Creek and Salmon River Formations. Jack Formation rocks consist of clast supported granitoid pebble and boulder conglomerate and are present along the west central part of the Property. Overlying the Jack Formation, farther to the east, the Betty Creek Formation is composed of the Unuk River and Treaty Ridge Members. At the toe of the Treaty Glacier, undifferentiated andesite and epiclastic rocks belong to the Unuk River Member.

Large hydrothermal alteration haloes are developed around the intrusive complexes in the Mitchell and Sulphurets Deposits areas. Similar alteration is present at the Treaty Creek Property and surround several of the mineral zones on the Property including the Goldstorm Deposit. Potassic alteration is closely associated with copper and gold mineralization in the Mitchell intrusions and adjacent Stuhini and Hazelton Group Rocks. The potassium alteration zones are overprinted by propylitic and chlorite-sericite alteration and surrounded by widely developed quartz-sericite pyrite (sericitic) alteration zones.

Major structural features in the Treaty Creek Property area are regional scale contractional faults along with associated local dilational faulting, formed within the Cretaceous Skeena Fold Belt. The west side of the Treaty Creek Property area lies primarily on the upper block of the Sulphurets Thrust Fault. The Sulphurets Thrust is an east-vergent thrust fault formed during Cretaceous transpression and is the immediate hanging wall to the porphyry deposits at Seabridge’s KSM Property. This structure extends to the northeast of the Sulphurets district onto the Treaty Creek Property and along with the interaction of other local thrust faulting, is considered to be a control on formation of the porphyry-style gold mineralization. Local to the Goldstorm Deposit, compressional deformation is taken up by regional thrust faulting named Treaty Thrust Fault 1 (TTF1) and Treaty Thust Fault 2 (TTF2). These local to regional scale thrust faults represent the hangingwall (TTF1) and footwall (TTF2) contacts of the deposit. The Goldstorm mineralized system is comprised of six distinct mineralized domains including Copper Belle, 300H, CS-600, Deep Stockwork 5 (DS5), Route 66 (R66), and North-South Stockwork (NS STK). The Copper Belle domain exists at the southwest end of the Goldstorm Deposit and represents a gold-dominant, shear hosted mineralized system. The 300H, CS-600, and DS5 domains comprising the Goldstorm mineral system are tabular bodies dipping 45 to 50 degrees to the northwest. The near surface 300H domain hosts pervasively disseminated auriferous-pyrite and fine gold-bearing pyrite veinlets and stringers. The CS-600 domain underlies the 300H domain and gold-copper dominant mineralization is associated with quartz veinlet stockworks, hydrothermal breccias, and porphyritic diorite intrusive stocks. Beneath the 300H and CS-600 domains are the DS5 domain which is a gold-dominant quartz-pyrite veinlet stockwork zone that carries minor silver values. Additionally, the R66 and NS STK domains represent narrow 20 – 50 m corridors of north south striking, high-grade gold dominant, quartz stockwork mineralization.

‍Major Fault
‍The Sulphurets Thrust Fault that runs throughout the SHS is a major factor in the formation of large porphyry systems along it.  Seabridge has stated that it is directly related to the Kerr, Sulphurets, Mitchell / Snowstorm, and Iron Cap deposits.  It appears that the Sulphurets Thrust Fault continues through the heart of Treaty Creek and is associated with at least the Goldstorm and Perfect Storm zones.