The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – September 21, 2018
Taking advantage of Alaska's long summer days, crews drill the eastern extension of the Zackly deposit as the sun sets near midnight in July at the Alaska Range project.
This copper oxide stained outcrop is found at Mars, an area of the Alaska Range property where a magnetic anomaly and mineralization suggest the potential for a buried copper-gold porphyry deposit.
PolarX Ltd. Sept. 20 announced that it has encountered deeper high-grade gold-copper-silver mineralization east of the Zackly skarn deposit on the Australian explorer's Alaska Range Project.
In March, PolarX reported an Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource for Zackly of 3.4 million metric tons of 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.
The skarn deposit that hosts this resource had been outlined by drilling for about 1,000 meters along strike. The primary goal of this year's 18-hole drill program is to expand this resource along strike and to depth.
The latest hole, ZX‐18025, cut 15 meters of magnetite skarn mineralization averaging 2.3 percent copper, 2.2 grams per metric ton gold and 11.9 g/t silver about 350 meters east of the resource boundary.
This intercept is about 40 meters below hole ZX-18023, which cut 9.3 meters averaging 3.3 percent copper, 2.3 g/t gold and 19.7 g/t silver.
These holes help fill the gap between the Zackly resource and hole ZX-18020, which cut 55 meters of 2.8 g/t gold and 0.6 percent copper about 500 meters further east.
Other holes were drilled beneath the resource, including ZX-18018, which cut three zones of copper‐gold-silver mineralization 100 meters deeper than any previous intercept.
From a depth of 261.6 meters, this hole cut 25.5 meters averaging 0.6 percent copper, 1.5 g/t gold and 5.5 g/t silver; 13.9 meters of 0.6 percent copper, 1.1 g/t gold and 4.7 g/t silver from 300.8 meters; and 4.7 meters of 1.3 percent copper, 2.1 g/t gold and 10.6 g/t silver from 326.1 meters.
Assays from eight remaining holes drilled this year are pending, including one hole drilled below ZX-18020 and another below ZX‐18025.
Exploring beyond Zackly
In addition to resource expansion, PolarX completed regional exploration across much of the Alaska Range project.
One of the primary goals of this work is to test the strong potential for a deeper and much larger buried porphyry source indicated by geophysics and geochemistry at Zackly.
The skarn deposit currently being expanded sits slightly east of midway between two prominent magnetic anomalies – Zackly SE and Mars.
The 55-meter-thick zone of high-grade mineralization cut in hole ZX-18020 indicates that the mineralization is getting thicker as the drilling gets closer to Zackly SE.
Given the close association of magnetite with the gold-copper skarn mineralization, the presence of geological structures at Zackly and the magnetic signatures of the porphyry targets, PolarX had a detailed helicopter‐borne magnetic and radiometric survey flown over the entire northern part of the Alaska Range project.
The information gleaned from this survey is expected to help target future exploration on the property.
The regional exploration also included detailed mapping and soils sampling at Mars, another exciting porphyry prospect located about 4,000 meters northwest of the Zackly skarn.
PolarX also completed detailed mapping and soil sampling at Moonwalk, a gold-rich prospect at the far north end of the Alaska Range project.
In 2011, Millrock Resources Inc., which is managing the exploration at Alaska Range, collected 19 soil samples from the main zone of alteration at Moonwalk that averaged 1.15 g/t gold. The highest grade of these samples returned 3.54 g/t gold.
Rock‐chip samples of quartz‐veins at this "Tintina-style" prospect returned assays up to 30.45 g/t gold.
These results, along with gold found in downstream sediment samples, indicate the potential of a large and high-grade gold system at Moonwalk.
Assays from this year's sampling at Moonwalk are expected in October.
–SHANE LASLEY
Reader Comments(0)