Drills turning

Diamond core drill rigs started turning in early March on the Golden Summit gold exploration property some 25 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Partners in the project, Freegold Ventures Ltd. and Meridian Gold Inc. plan to complete six holes, taking a total of 1,500 meters or almost 5,000 feet of core samples in this first stage of drilling.

The holes will be in the vicinity of the historic Cleary Hill Mine, according to Kristina Walcott, mining lands manager for Freegold Ventures, a Vancouver, B.C.-based mineral exploration company that has worked Golden Summit for more than a decade.

"We're targeting some of the old high-grade veins at the mine," she told Mining News on March 5.

One of several shuttered hard rock gold mines on the 18,000-acre Golden Summit property, Cleary Hill was the largest lode gold producer in the Fairbanks mining district prior to World War II. Estimated production from Cleary Hill from the early 1900s until 1942 was 281,000 ounces of gold with an average grade of 1.3 ounces of gold per ton of rock.

Production from the underground mine took place over six levels, descending approximately 400 feet. Limited prior drilling in the area hit some of the high-grade veins and identified potential bulk tonnage style mineralization.

Drilling extends depths of mining

Drill intercepts taken in 2000 produced intercepts of 64 feet grading 4.74 grams per ton, two feet of 86.12 grams per ton and 300 feet of 1.38 grams per ton at the Currey Zone, located approximately 1,600 feet south of the Cleary Hill Mine, according to a Freegold press release.

"The current drilling is targeting the strike extension of previously intersected high-grade mineralization, which extend the depths of the previous underground mining," the company said in the March 5 release.

Meridian Gold, which in late January signed a joint venture agreement with Freegold to earn up to a 70 percent interest in the Golden Summit property, has committed to spend $740,000 for exploration in 2004. An airborne magnetic survey flown over the 18,000-acre property has been completed and that data is currently being interpreted, Walcott said.

Under terms of the deal, Golden Summit is divided into three project areas, A, B and C. Meridian may earn up to a 70 percent interest in areas A and B.

The airborne survey was flown over the entire area, and Meridian has a first right of refusal to explore Area C, on terms to be agreed on in exchange for funding the survey.