The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
True North Gems confirms significant mineralization at aquamarine property near the Ketza River gold mine south of Ross River
After focusing on its ruby-rich claims in Greenland for the past few years, True North Gems Inc. has returned to Yukon Territory to hunt for rare earth elements rather than gems.
The junior has confirmed the presence of significant REE and niobium mineralization at its True Blue gem aquamarine property located 55 kilometers, or 34 miles, south of Ross River, in southern Yukon Territory.
True North reported completion of an eight-day field program in August and testing of samples in November. The field program was primarily comprised of prospecting, magnetometer surveying, mapping, and geochemical sampling, with the assistance of both a scintillometer and a portable Niton XRF unit.
The purpose of the program was to investigate the rare earth element and niobium potential of the property, which is accessible via an all-weather road to the Ketza River gold mine, followed by 10 kilometers, or 7 miles, of summer-only road to the property.
Grab samples were collected at three separate locations and returned assays up to 6.02 percent total rare earth oxides, plus yttrium, and 2.52 percent niobium oxide. These high-grade results confirm REE and niobium oxide mineralization within a skarn and altered felsic dyke swarm.
In addition, an individual chip-channel sample from outcrop returned 0.42 percent TREO and 0.58 percent Nb2O5 over five meters width. The north-south-striking felsic dyke swarm at the Guano occurrence is intermittently exposed over a length of about 750 meters. Within this zone, numerous narrow-to-multi-meter-wide-dykes intrude over an observed horizontal width of 40-100 meters thickness.
Anomalous REE analyses were returned from both the Camp Skarn and Shark Bowl prospects that are located 1.2 kilometers, or 0.74 miles, and 2.8 kilometers, or 1.74 miles, respectively, from the Guano prospect. Together with anomalous silt sediment samples, these results indicate that the True Blue property hosts excellent potential for the discovery of a rare earth and niobium-enriched mineral deposit or deposits, said True North Gems.
Importantly, the TREO analyses for all three prospects (Guano, Camp Skarn and Shark Bowl) are anomalously enriched with the rarer, and typically higher value, heavy rare earth element series (HREE - defined as Europium through to Lutetium), the junior added.
Additional tests encouraging
Seven samples - six rocks from the Guano Prospect and one rock from the Shark Bowl Prospect - were selected and subjected to quantitative phase analysis using the Rietveld method on X-ray powder diffraction data.
Mineral phase identification and quantification showed lower detection limits of 0.3 modal percent.
The Rietveld method results identified the following minerals, which are believed to contain the majority of the rare earth elements and niobium, reported by modal percent in each sample: allanite-(Ce) (up to 16.6 percent), zircon (up to 10.86 percent), fersmite (up to 1.96 percent), baddeleyite (up to 1.36 percent), hydroxylapatite (up to 1.26 percent), columbite (up to 0.66 percent), monazite-(Ce) (up to 0.56 percent), tazheranite (up to 0.46 percent), and xenotime-(Y) (up to 0.36 percent).
Fersmite and columbite are the niobium-enriched minerals.
True North said further exploration will be required on the new discoveries at True Blue.
The company also cautioned that the results of the mineralogical evaluation and hence, the identification of some of the minerals are preliminary in nature. Further work is recommended and required on the True Blue property to establish a full appreciation of the average REE and niobium content of the three different REE occurrences discovered to date on the property.
True North is a pioneer in colored gemstone exploration in the Western Hemisphere and, currently in Greenland, has rights to earn 100 percent interest in the Fiskenaesset ruby and pink sapphire property, and holds 100 percent interest in the Qaqqatsiaq ruby property. The company has said the Fiskenaesset deposit has a ruby resource that rivals the politically controversial ruby resources of Burma.
In Canada, True North holds 100 percent interest in the Tsa da Glisza emerald property, in Yukon Territory, and the Beluga sapphire property located on Baffin Island in Nunavut.
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