The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Prospector who discovered White Gold may have found source of 6 million ounces of gold produced during the Klondike Gold Rush
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 gold-rich outcrop led most to believe that the alluvial gold that littered the creek bottom was all that remained of the elusive beast.
"It's one of these sleeping dragons," Ryan told Mining News in mid- August. "This 100-year-old thing has been going on where people haven't found anything new, so everybody kind of gave up hope."
A combination of savvy prospecting, modern geophysics and quality soil sampling may have led Ryan to the discovery of the lode source that has remained hidden for more than a century.
"It's fun; it's a good game," the self-taught prospector said. "What I try to do is use intuition and prove it with science. Your intuition and your research comes through the wintertime, and summer is the time to go out and prove your hypothesis by collecting more soils or trenching, looking for the right clues."
Apparently vertical
About five years ago, while studying geophysical maps produced by government-funded airborne surveys, Ryan spotted a magnetic anomaly paralleling the northeast side of Bonanza Creek. Intrigued, he staked 112 quartz mining claims over more than 6 kilometers of the structure that he says, "stands out like a sore thumb."
"The main thing (at Bonanza) is the structure that nobody has paid attention to," Ryan explained. "Now that I have brought this up to quite a few different high-level-type geologists, everybody falls over."
Mike Burke, a senior geologist for the Yukon Geology Survey, told Mining News that the anomaly "is an obvious magnetic linear trend."
" It doesn't deviate too much with the contours of the land, so it has to be pretty close to vertical," Burke said.
The apparent vertical nature of the structure is what is knocking geologists off their feet.
"What's perked people's interest in the Bonanza property is it looks like it is a more vertical structure, Ryan explained. "So, theoretically, if you did lose the top 600 to 800 feet to erosion you could still have good potential at depth on this system."
Truth machine time
Ryan followed up his discovery with a bonanza of soil samples, finding anomalous gold in the areas where the structure deviates.
"It's not screaming numbers, but it is good enough," he said. "All I do is line things up in probabilities. Because (the gold anomaly) was in the deflection zone where the structure started to bend over, that is where you would expect a good gold target, because that is where it started to dump out. For me as a prospector, that increases my probability. That is getting better and better as an exploration target."
Burke said now that the structure has been identified and soil samples have turned up results, "it's time to get a truth machine out there."
Ryanwood Explorations Inc. - the prospecting firm owned by Ryan and his business savvy wife, Cathy Wood, - has optioned the property to an unnamed junior explorer. Ryan anticipates the company will have a drill (another name for a truth machine) on the property next spring.
"The next phase for that property is a major drilling campaign. We will probably do a little ground geophysics and maybe some trenching, but I think these guys are going to turn it into a good drilling campaign," Ryan said.
In addition to optioning the Bonanza Creek claims, the yet-unnamed junior also optioned a claim block on Hunker Creek (another multimillion-ounce placer gold creek in the Klondike area) from Dawson City-based Ryanwood.
Success at White Gold
Ryan is not a stranger to making discoveries of historic proportions. His discovery of the White Gold property, currently being drilled by Underworld Resources Inc., has launched the prospector to nearly rock star status.
Since he optioned White Gold to Underworld in 2007, that junior has unofficially outlined more than 1 million ounces of gold at the Golden Saddle zone of the property.
Underworld's success initiated a land rush to this underexplored region of the Dawson Range in western Yukon Territory about 60 miles, or 95 kilometers, south of Dawson City. About 29 exploration companies have descended on the region and more than 8,000 new claims have been staked in 2009, and the numbers are growing.
Ryanwood has optioned 12 claim blocks in the White Gold region to various companies, including Underworld Resources (White Gold, Black Fox and Cathy WS properties); Kaminak Gold Corp. (Coffee, Kirkman and Cream properties); Aldrin Resources (Brew and IND properties); Pacific Ridge Exploration (Polar and Stewart properties); and Stina Resources (Kodiak and Dime properties.)
Soil sample bonanza
Any company wishing to option a property from Ryanwood must agree that the Dawson-based explorer will complete the soil sampling on the property, a stipulation most juniors are happy to accommodate. Ryan has gained a reputation for his quality soil sampling and comprehensive mapping abilities.
Underworld President Adrian Fleming, a geologist with 30 years experience in the mining industry said, "Shawn Ryan is so savvy. Here is a guy (with) no formal technical training. He knows more geology than most of us, (and) he runs map info better than just about anybody I know. He is just the complete package."
The rush to Ryanwood properties this year has resulted in what could be the largest soil sampling bonanza the Yukon Territory has ever seen. As of Aug. 16, Ryanwood crews had collected 20,000 samples this year, and the company is expecting to gather an additional 10,000 samples by October.
In addition to White Gold district properties, Ryanwood has Yukon projects optioned to Strategic Metals Ltd. (PDM Claims and Fairweather properties), BC Gold Corp. (Carmacks project), Full Metal Minerals Corp. (Angie, Cat, Rim, Nadaleen and OG properties), and Golden Predator Royalty and Development (Ant Gold project).
"Under the name of Ryanwood and Shawn Ryan, we hold a little over 9,000 claims for a total 466,000 acres. I believe I am the largest private quartz claim holder in the Yukon. I would say about 2/3 of these claims are now under option," the explorer noted.
Similar circumstances
Like Bonanza Creek, the White Gold property also has ties to the Klondike Gold Rush. Government records from the late 1800s refer to a gold-bearing chunk of rock found near the confluence of the White and Yukon rivers that was sold by one William Ogilvie for C$20,000.
A magnetic feature on a government commissioned airborne geophysical survey is also what caught Ryan's attention at White Gold. Ryanwood blanketed the grassroots discovery with more than 4,000 soil samples.
The young prospector entered the extensive data he collected from the soil sampling into his state-of-the-art mapping program, and came up with a comprehensive picture of the geophysical and geochemical signatures of the property.
The maps and datasets produced by Ryan's comprehensive data-collecting and processing is what attracted Underworld to the White Gold property and led to the junior's rapid success at the grassroots prospect. And yes, Ryan did find the probable source of the historically noted Ogilvie rock.
"Now I'm expecting projects like the Bonanza and some of my other claim blocks to start to get attention because I've done my homework," Ryan told Mining News. "This is our first evidence, scientific. Now we have a picture. I really think we are going to find two or three of these beasts, because now we know what it looks like and where it hides."
Placers as vectoring tools
Ryan said modern day explorers are going to start paying closer attention to historic placer-bearing streams, using them as "vectoring tools." Taking direction from these gold-producing creeks, explorers can employ modern geophysics and geochemical and mapping techniques to discover the hardrock source of the alluvial gold.
"Before, we always thought about (the source of the placer streams), but nobody ever followed up on it. Now I think we are going to see the follow-up. With these nice placer creeks with chunky gold, well people are going to be looking in the hills behind it," the prospector said. "Underworld has given everybody the confidence (to say) 'we should think about drilling this thing (Bonanza). We are sitting above this 6 million-ounce placer creek; we are on this big structure; the guy has done the soils and the gold is there.' "
Drilling will tell whether the young explorer has discovered the mythical beast that left its golden treasure in the bottom of Bonanza Creek and whether there are additional hordes to be discovered.
For Ryan, the hunt is fun either way.
"You are the first guy to find things sometimes," the explorer said. "It's kind of fun, and that's the point."
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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