The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 182
KRX: TSX-V President and CEO: J. Greg Dawson, M.Sc., PGeo. Non-Executive Chairman: William M. Sheriff Chief Financial Officer: Justin Blanchet, CA Operating under the philosophy that it will maximize the chance for success in a high-risk business by concentrating on the right commodities in mining-friendly jurisdictions with high mineral potential, Copper Ridge Explorations Ltd. owns or has the option to acquire an interest in nine mineral properties in Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. The junior also holds a royalty inter...
Now that the word is out about Atac Resources Ltd.'s impressive gold discoveries at the Rau Project in central Yukon Territory, the financial market is taking to the early-stage exploration effort with the enthusiasm of a bear in a beehive. Atac recently reported impressive results from drilling and prospecting the Osiris and Isis targets on the Sten claim block near the eastern edge of the 185-kilometer-, or 115-mile-long Rau Project. Meanwhile, investors have fueled a run-up in Atac's stock price to about $7 a share from...
DAWSON, Yukon Territory - Hardrock mining explorers are capitalizing on unprecedented investor interest and going after paying gold, silver, copper-rich porphyry, lead-zinc and other metal deposits here with uncommon gusto this summer. A few years ago, a multimillion-dollar, single-season exploration program would have been a rare commodity in the Yukon. But this year, at least a half-dozen juniors have joined one major, Kinross Gold Corp., and the Yukon's only producer, Capstone Mining Corp., in forking over megabucks to...
Two seminal events related to the Alaska mining industry occurred in the past month. First, in late June, Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. reported the commencement of production at it Kensington gold mine near Juneau. The mine has now joined the ranks of large-scale producers here in Alaska but only after lots of years and lots of dollars, capped by a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court! Hat's off to Coeur for its commitment to Alaska and for its desire to do this job right. Secondly,...
Though most of the gold fever sweeping northern Canada these days is focused on Yukon Territory's White Gold district to the west and near Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.'s new Meadowbank Mine to the east in Nunavut, a growing number of explorers are trekking to the territory in between. Mining companies are returning to the Northwest Territories as gold prices set records, including a recent high of US$1,260 per ounce. But most of these explorers are targeting known deposits or previously identified mineralization rather than...
FORTYMILE - The storm clouds responsible for the torrential rains that recently washed away long sections of the Taylor Highway are not the only source of rumbling in the Fortymile region of eastern Interior Alaska. Full Metal Minerals Ltd. has launched the Rolling Thunder Project here this summer. The staking and exploration initiative is targeting the lode source of more than half a million ounces of placer gold recovered historically from the streams draining the rolling...
Just as junior and major mining companies have important roles to play in the chain of developments that lead, hopefully, to discovery of substantial mineral deposits and subsequent commercial development, individual prospectors occupy a critical niche in the industry's life cycle. In the vast and remote stretches of northwestern Canada, this is especially true and the need for mineral prospectors is acute. Yet, rather than being thick on the ground, individuals who hunt for minerals are relatively rare. Most mineral...
Mineral-rich Nunavut Territory celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2009 and mining explorers seeking diamonds and precious and base metals brought their drills to the party. The territory, home to only 31,000 people living in 25 small, scattered communities, covers 1.9 million square kilometers, or one fifth the land mass of Canada and dwarfs Alaska by nearly 200,000 square miles. Of the young territory's economic prospects, mineral resource development offers perhaps the most long-term potential. "When I started work in...
Kinross Gold Corp. - operator of the largest gold mine in the Tintina Gold Belt - has embarked on a treasure hunt in hopes of identifying another Fort Knox-like deposit in this gold-rich province. The Tintina belt is a boomerang-shaped swath of land that spans the breadth of Alaska, through the Yukon Territory and into northern British Columbia. While Kinross works to extend the mine life of Fort Knox after 13 years of production through drilling, the Toronto-based miner is also investing in junior explorers with promising pr...
Since Mantra Mining Inc. emerged as the vehicle in which NovaGold Resources Inc. would spin off its noncore assets, the Vancouver B.C.-based junior has positioned itself to become a major player on the Alaska mining scene. In 2009 Mantra acquired whole or part interest in more than 417,000 acres of mining properties in western Alaska, assembled an impressive management team and board of directors (including two Thayer Lindsley award winners) and raised C$5 million to...
Mantra Mining Inc. reported several major developments recently, including plans to spin off properties with significant zinc mineralization, changing its name and completion of planned 2009 work programs on its exploration properties in Alaska. The Vancouver, B.C.-based junior said it would hold a special meeting Sept. 25 to seek approval from shareholders to pass a special resolution that will spin out the properties in a company called AsiaBaseMetals Inc. The transaction would involve each existing Mantra shareholder...
DAWSON CITY, Yukon Territory - Modern-day prospector Shawn Ryan is hot on the trail of what he believes could be the monster lode source of the 6 million ounces of placer gold recovered from historic Bonanza Creek of Klondike Gold Rush fame. For more than a century, geologists and prospectors have searched for the source rock that dumped a golden treasure into the creek and lured tens of thousands of men into the Yukon at the turn of the 19th century. The lack of an obvious...
Kinross Gold Corp. - operator of the largest gold mine in the Tintina Gold Belt - has embarked on a treasure hunt in hopes of identifying another Fort Knox-like deposit in this gold-rich province. The Tintina belt is a boomerang-shaped swath of land that spans the breadth of Alaska, through the Yukon Territory and into northern British Columbia. While Kinross works to extend the mine life of Fort Knox after 13 years of production through drilling, the Toronto-based miner is...
Underworld Resources Inc. struck a much thicker band of gold-rich mineralization in early drilling this season, the company reported May 26. Initial assay results from the Vancouver BC-based junior's second season of drilling into the Golden Saddle zone at the White Gold property in Yukon Territory revealed a new 100-meter-thick band of gold mineralization much deeper than the original near-surface discovery. The new zone, roughly 100 to 200 meters deep, averaged more than 3...
Yukon Territory has one producing mine, the Minto copper-gold-silver operation near the Yukon River north of Whitehorse. During 2008, more than 150 active hardrock exploration projects in the territory, 73 of which recording spending greater than C$100,000, and 22 posted outlays greater $1 million. Here's a look at some of the mining companies active in Yukon Territory. Producing mines Sherwood Copper Corp., now a part of Capstone Mining Corp., took the Minto Mine, Yukon Territory's only producing hard rock mine, to new...
DAWSON CITY, Yukon - Atop a wooded peak in this land of mountains and deep valleys near the confluence of the White and Yukon rivers, a New Zealand-based miner is hard at work exploring for gold. Underworld Resources Inc., a junior organized in 2007, has come to the Far North in hopes of making a commercial discovery at the White Gold and Black Fox Gold properties in west central Yukon Territory, about 95-123 kilometers, or 59-76 miles, by air south of Dawson City. Organized with an initial public offering in March 2007, Unde...
As the late, great Phil Rizutto used to say when something amazing happened on the baseball field: "Holy Cow!" The last month has seen an explosion of activity across Alaska with companies working in virtually every region on a diverse package of metals including gold, platinum group elements, silver, molybdenum, lead, zinc, copper and nickel. Several new companies have entered the exploration field in Alaska and several new partners have joined forces with previously active...
Molybdenum prices have gained altitude and performed a "loop the loop" in recent years that aerobatic pilots would envy. Skyrocketing from a low of $2 a pound in 2002 to a peak of $50 a pound in 2005, before dipping to the $20-a-pound range last year and climbing back to $33.75 a pound in mid-June, moly prices are having a heck of wild ride. Mining companies, in response, have been scrambling to expand and start up molybdenum projects. The trend is particularly evident in mineral-rich British Columbia, where 1,350...
The annual running of the bulls in Pamplona can't hold a candle to the statewide frenzy that is going on right now across the length and breadth of Alaska. Measure it any way you like - meters drilled, helicopter hours used, geologists or engineers on the payroll, gallons of fuel burned or gallons of peanut butter consumed - it all comes out the same. The Alaska mineral industry is running at or over capacity and there is no sign that that will change any time soon. The last month saw the start of multiple drilling programs...
Just because Alaska is nowhere near any of the world's kimberlite provinces, doesn't mean that geologist David Szumigala is giving up hope on finding diamonds in the state. "Thinking conventionally doesn't mean that you are right!" is Szumigala's approach to the problem. Without the presence of kimberlite, he had to draw up an alternative geological model that would explain how diamonds could theoretically be formed here. In what Szumigala calls his eclogite model, carbon-rich sediments get subducted (sucked down a trench)...
As expected, news has begun to trickle in from projects being worked on across the state. Some of the news is good, some not so good and some makes one scratch the head and wonder what it all means. Two new corporations entered the Alaska exploration industry in August, a trend started late last year as metal prices began their climb to current levels. August also saw the start of several new programs on a wide range of projects spread from the Seward Peninsula to southern Southeastern Alaska. The tally of the good, the bad...
Where has never been a diamond mine in Alaska, but that may change if Golconda Resources has anything to do with it. The Calgary-based junior, in partnership with Shear Minerals and Shulin Lake Mining, is exploring for diamonds at the Shulin Lake property in central Alaska. Diamonds have been found across the border in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. But in Canada, diamonds are brought to the surface in kimberlite pipes, igneous structures that rise due to their high temperature and the extremely high pressures that exist...
In case you have not heard, Alaska's mineral industry is cooking! Over the last month two new companies have acquired mineral properties in Alaska and most of the existing projects kicked off their summer programs in earnest. One of Alaska's major mining projects received its final permits to allow mine construction to begin and several others are conducting preliminary and final feasibility studies. Drilling rigs are scarce as hen's teeth and the helicopters to lift them and the people who run them are booked from now until...
Residents of Southwest Alaska - including a former state governor - expressed passionate opinions about the proposed Pebble open-pit mine at a conference in the village of Newhalen April 7-9, demonstrating that there will be a host of social issues to deal with even if mine developer Northern Dynasty can overcome the project's daunting environmental and economic hurdles. Local Natives are worried about the threat to their subsistence lifestyle, lodge owners and guides fear tourism could change and anti-mining NGOs are making...
On the cusp of what promises to be one of the busiest mineral exploration and development seasons in the last 20 years, the mineral industry is madly preparing its personnel and equipment all across the state. Despite the late season snows and unusually cool temperatures being experienced as this summary is being written, many of Alaska's exploration programs are either under way or will be sometime in early May. Competition for funds within and between companies remains fierce as projects in the U.S., Canada, Europe,...
