Mining Explorers 2016: TerraX Minerals Inc.

TerraX Minerals Inc. is carrying out year-round exploration aimed at unlocking a multimillion-ounce gold camp at its Yellowknife City Gold Project, which extends north and south of the capital of Northwest Territories.

Blanketing the same geological trend that hosts the historic Con and Giant mines, which produced a combined 14.2 million ounces of gold, the company's 118-square-kilometer (45.5 square miles) Yellowknife property blankets a region known for yielding deposits of a scale and grade to be among Canada's great gold camps.

To date, most of the company's exploration success has been along the core gold area of the Northbelt property, which extends north from Yellowknife and the historic mines. TerraX says the six veins and shear zones it has discovered along this 10-kilometer- (six miles) long core area - Mispickel, Sam Otto, Barney, Herbert-Brent; 20 Shear and Crestaurum - are indicative of a larger mineralized system.

In February, the company began a 7,310-meter winter drill program that investigated a number of the core area targets. This program started with four holes at Mispickel, a zone at the north end of the core gold area that had never previously been drilled. All of the holes cut multiple zones of sulfide mineralized veins and replacement style sulfide mineralization, and three had visible gold.

Hole TWL16-001 cut 8.6 meters of 12.87 grams per metric ton gold in the main zone at Mispickel and 11.32 meters of 2.14 g/t gold in the footwall of the zone.

Hole TWL16-002 cut 7.3 meters of 23.6 g/t gold in the main zone.

Encouraged by these results, the company drilled five more holes at Mispickel at the end of the winter program. The best intercept of this second round of drilling encountered eight meters of 60.6 grams per metric ton gold in hole TWL16-016.

Winter drilling at Sam Otto, a zone not previously tested by TerraX, tapped wide and persistent zones of lower grade gold mineralization.

Hebert-Brent, a zone first drilled by TerraX in 2015, was the target of 19 relatively shallow holes during the winter program that tested the interpreted plunge and strike extensions of mineralized zones exposed on surface.

Barney, AES, Pinto and VSB were other zones tested during the winter drilling.

In July, the company announced the start of a 27,000-meter drill program that will run into 2017.

This extensive program includes a combination of extensional drilling on known mineralized zones such as Mispickel; aggressive step out holes along the structures hosting known zones, such as a 5,000-meter trend hosting Mispickel; and drilling focused on generating new discoveries.

The 2016 work at Yellowknife also included surface exploration mapping, prospecting and LiDAR surveys at Southbelt, the portion of the project that stretches south form Yellowknife City; and mapping, prospecting at Wash Lake, Mispickel and Sam Otto zones.

-SHANE LASLEY