The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – July 20, 2018
Hole ZX‐18018 cut strong visible copper and gold mineralization roughly 100 meters below the current resource outlined at the Zackly deposit on PolarX' Alaska Range project.
This oxidized copper was encountered at around 57 meters in ZX-18020, a hole drilled about 850 meters east of the copper-gold resource outlined at the Zackly Main Skarn deposit.
PolarX Ltd. July 17 reported that strong, visible copper and gold mineralization was seen in ZX‐18018, a recently completed hole that drilled about 100 meters below the current resource at the Zackly skarn deposit on the Australian explorer's Alaska Range property.
A 13-hole drill program carried out in 2017 upgraded the historical Zackly deposit to 3.4 million metric tons of JORC- (Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee) compliant inferred resource grading 1.2 percent (90.4 million pounds) copper, 2 grams per metric ton (213,000 oz) gold and 14 g/t (1.5 million oz) silver.
This year's up to 25-hole program at the Alaska Range Project is focused on expanding the roughly 1,000-meter-long Zackly copper‐gold deposit along strike and to depth.
Hole ZX‐18018 cut strong visible copper and gold mineralization roughly 100 meters below the nearest hole on this section of the current inferred resource at Zackly.
PolarX said the copper and gold mineralization is hosted within sub‐vertical skarn alteration from 260.15 to 332.08 meters down-hole. Mineralization occurs across three broad zones associated with massive magnetite bands containing bornite, chalcocite and covellite; or with visible gold in skarn as bornite, covellite, chalcocite and native copper.
Overall, the company reports that visible gold has been observed in four separate locations in hole ZX‐18018.
In addition to cutting visible copper and gold below the deposit, PolarX has cut strong mineralization to the east of the resource.
ZX‐18016, the first hole of the PolarX' 2018 program at Alaska Range, cut visible gold about 300 meters east of the resource area known as Main Skarn.
ZX‐18020, drilled about 850 meters of Main Skarn, cut 55 meters of intense copper mineralization in this expansion area referred to as East Skarn. This thick intercept included a section of heavily oxidized copper mineralization, primarily malachite, at 57 meters.
While visible gold and the obvious copper mineralization observed in core is positive signs for resource expansion, PolarX cautions that these observations do not replace actual assay results from a lab, which are currently pending.
As of July 16, six holes for 1,042 meters of drilling have been completed at Alaska Range and another two holes were underway – one testing further depth extensions of the Zackly resource and the second testing the East Skarn extension.
As part of the 2018 drill program, PolarX also aims to test the potential at Zackly for a deeper and much larger buried porphyry source. The company believes a porphyry may be the source of the prominent magnetic anomaly at Zackly SE, which lies about 2,000 meters southeast of the current resource.
Editor's Note: More information on the Alaska Range project and the exploration being carried out there can be found in Early Zackly results show growth potential, an article on North of 60 Mining News' July 8 visit to the project.
–SHANE LASLEY
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