The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Royal Gold, Contango Ore expand Peak deposits, seek new zones at Tetlin
Having outlined 1.26 million ounces of gold, 5.11 million oz of silver and 39.6 million pounds of copper in the measured and indicated resource category at the Peak deposits, Royal Gold and Contango Ore are now looking for new zones of similar high-grade gold mineralization at other prospect across theTetlin gold project near Tok, Alaska.
“Having discovered and now defined a substantial body of ore, our drilling plans for the summer of 2017, which commenced in mid- May, are targeted towards more exploratory prospects in the general area of the Main and North Peak deposits,” explained Contango Ore President and CEO Brad Juneau.
This work is being carried out by Peak Gold, a joint venture funded and managed by Royal Gold.
Under a 2015 JV agreement, the Denver-based royalty company can earn a 40 percent interest in Peak Gold by investing US$30 million on exploratory work at Tetlin by October, 2018. Through the end of March, Royal Gold had spent roughly US$20 million on exploration at Tetlin, an investment that has earned it a nearly 25 percent stake in the JV.
Substantial resources
Since Royal Gold joined Contango Ore in exploring Tetlin, the Peak Gold JV has focused its efforts upon expanding and upgrading a resource calculated for Contango Ore following the 2013 drill program.
At the time Peak Gold was formed, Contango Ore had already outlined 6 million metric tons of indicated resources averaging 3.46 grams per metric ton (664,112 oz) gold, 11 g/t silver and 0.25 percent copper in the Main Peak zone. An additional 3.9 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 2.07 g/t (256,000 oz) gold, 14.28 g/t silver and 0.23 percent copper had been outlined in this deposit.
The drilling completed by Peak Gold over the past two years has focused on two primary objectives – upgrading and expanding the deposit identified at Main Peak and delineating a deposit at North Peak, a parallel zone about 250 meters to the northeast. Both goals were met.
“The results obtained by Peak Gold through drilling this past year have been outstanding,” said Juneau.
Plugging these drill results into a resource calculation published on June 2 has resulted in a nearly twofold expansion of the amount of gold reporting to the higher confidence measured and indicated categories.
According to this updated resource, the Main Peak and North Peak zones now encompass 10.6 million metric tons of measured and indicated resource averaging 3.64 g/t (1.24 million oz) gold, 14.18 g/t (4.83 million oz) silver and 0.16 percent (37.3 million pounds) copper.
The global resource for these two deposits – measured, indicated and inferred – now stands at 15.65 million metric tons averaging 2.98 g/t (1.5 million oz) gold, 14.68 g/t (7.39 million oz) silver and 0.16 percent (55 million lb) copper. This is calculated using a gold-equivalent cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t gold.
“We now have substantial quantities of measured and indicated resources relative to inferred resources, the result of substantially more drilling over the past year defining the known deposits already discovered at Main and North Peak,” said the Contango Ore CEO.
Nearby prospects
With the Main and North Peak deposits fairly well outlined, Royal Gold and Contango Ore are now seeking new zones of similar gold-rich skarn mineralization nearby.
The work includes the drilling of six priority prospects – Discovery, West Peak Extension, Fin, New Moon, Brad’s Well and 7 O’clock – over a 2,500-acre-area in the immediate vicinity of the Peak zones.
Juneau said “these prospects are sizeable in potential area with similar geophysical and geochemical properties to our Main Peak and North Peak” deposits.
The Discovery zone, situated about 500 meters southwest of Main Peak, was tapped during exploratory drilling in 2011 that resulted in the Peak zones discovery later that year.
TET1105, the first hole targeting Discovery, cut 3.7 meters averaging 3.1 g/t gold, 300.2 g/t silver and 0.26 percent copper.
TET1107 – drilled about 100 meters north of hole 5 – cut 6.4 meters grading 7.4 g/t gold, 4.9 g/t silver and 0.15 percent copper.
Contango Ore, however, cut thicker zones of similar grade mineralization at the Main Peak zone in 2012, which became the primary drill target over the ensuing two years.
West Peak Extension, an exploration target about 300 meters northwest of Main Peak, will also be tested this year.
Drilling at West Peak, which lies between Main Peak and West Peak Extension, last year cut promising mineralization. One such hole, TET16218, hit five mineralized intercepts, including 15.01 meters averaging 7.1 g/t gold from a depth of 191.47 meters.
TET16262, drilled about 50 meters west of hole 218, cut six zones of gold mineralization, including 8.53 meters of 5.75 g/t gold from a depth of 151.08 meters.
The grades and thicknesses encountered in the northwestern margins of West Peak has encourage Peak Gold to further test this area.
Fin is a prospect area protruding off the northeast side of North Peak.
New Moon and Brad’s Well lie about 500 and 1,000 meters northwest of North Peak, respectively.
7 O’clock is a large northwest trending geophysical and geochemical anomaly roughly 1,250 meters west of Main Peak.
Investigating Noah
In addition to seeking new deposits in the immediate vicinity of the Peak zones, Royal Gold and Contango Ore are applying what they have learned of the unique characteristics of Peak Gold mineralization to newly acquired state mining claims to the west.
The Peak Gold partners recently added to its already expansive land holding at Tetlin by staking 68,900 acres of state mining claims blanketing Noah and a number of gold, silver and base metals prospects the Alaska Division of Geological & Geological Surveys identified on state lands to the west of the main Tetlin property.
With the state lands previously staked by Peak Gold and the 659,000 acres of privately owned Alaska Native lands that Juneau leased from Tetlin Village in 2008, the overall Tetlin land package now covers 843,400 acres of land with dozens of gold, silver and copper prospects, most of which have very limited exploration.
Peak Gold decided to pick up the Noah claim blocks after a re-interpreting its own proprietary geological, geophysical, and geochemical data, alongside recently released public geological, geochemical and airborne geophysical data provided by DGGS.
Noah one of the prospects DGGS investigated on the claims staked by Peak Gold was drilled by Kennecott Exploration in 1998. While results from this drilling were never published, the state geological survey had access to core samples from this drilling that are stored at the Alaska Geologic Materials Center in Anchorage.
Investigating the area drilled, DGGS geologists identified a roughly 1.5-mile-wide intrusion with geochemical similarities to what is found near the Peak deposits.
Investigations by Alaska geologists in 2015 and 2016 confirmed many of the known prospects on these state lands west of the Peak zones, including 0.18 oz/t gold at the Noah porphyry prospect; 0.29 oz/t gold at the Shalosky vein; and massive sulfide grading 13 percent zinc, 1.9 percent copper, and 0.75 oz/t silver at the Eagle prospect.
Additionally, their investigation also turned up 20 undocumented mineral occurrences across this underexplored area.
Peak Gold will know a little more about this this stretch of state land west of Tetlin by the end of 2017.
Juneau said the partners “plan to do surface recon work on the recently acquired Noah claims as well as Tetlin Hills areas not previously sampled in detail in an effort to determine if drilling on these areas is warranted.”
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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