The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – February 8, 2019
Exploration carried out by IDM Mining in 2016 discovered the Money Rock prospect about 4,000 meters south of the current gold-silver mine development project at Red Mountain.
A view from above the portal at IDM Mining's Red Mountain gold-silver mine project. Recent melting of the Cambria icefield has exposed new mineralization adjacent to the reserves for this proposed underground operation near Stewart, British Columbia.
IDM Mining Ltd. Jan. 6 reported high-grade gold-silver was encountered during the 2018 trenching of the Randell Vein in the Lost Valley area of its Red Mountain property near Stewart, British Columbia.
Situated about 4,000 meters south of the underground gold-silver resource at Red Mountain, the mineralization encountered at Lost Valley is similar in structure and geochemistry to the ore being mined at the Pogo underground gold mine in Alaska.
Since 2014, 713 samples, including panel, channel, grab and float samples have been collected from the Lost Valley area. The average grade of these sample is 6.05 grams per metric ton gold and 38. 67 g/t silver, with the highest grade samples grading 165 g/t gold and 2059 g/t silver.
This work at Lost Valley had discovered Money Rock, a gold-silver zone the company had traced for about 100 meters prior to the 2018 sampling, and Randall Vein, a high-grade gold-silver zone about 75 meters south of Money Rock, was discovered in 2018.
Systematic panel sampling, channel sampling and trenching connected these zones and traced them for 300 meters along strike.
The final 21 panel and trench samples collected from the now connected Money Rock-Randell Vein averaged 7.17 g/t gold and 56.64 g/t silver.
Good continuity was exhibited in adjacent samples, with assays ranging from 1.65 to 15.38 g/t Au and 8.69 to 203 g/t Ag. Sample material is primarily quartz/pyrite colluvium, overlain by granite-dominated talus suggesting that the mineralization is deteriorating in place by weathering and glacial unloading.
IDM Mining said the gold mineralization at Lost Valley occurs within broad stockworks of gold-silver-molybdenum mineralization within an early-Tertiary granite, similar to the late-Cretaceous age Tintina Gold belt intrusive-related deposits found in Alaska and Yukon, such as Fort Knox and Eagle Gold. The high-grade gold-silver vein-hosted mineralization sampled at Lost Valley is structurally and geochemically similar to the Pogo Mine recently acquired by Australia-based Northern Star Resources.
The Money Rock structure occurs at the base of a cliff, which can be traced for at least another 250 meters to the west; the Randell structure can be traced for another 75 meters to the east through intermittent sampling, along the base of a separate cliff face.
During 2016, three drill holes from a single drill pad were completed at Money Rock.
Hole LV16-01 cut one meter 3 g/t gold and 23.8 g/t silver and LV16-02 intersected 1.2 meters averaging 4.63 g/t gold and 90.90 g/t silver. All three holes intersected a post-mineralization dyke where the zone was projected to occur from surface.
IDM said future drilling will target areas to the west and east of this dyke.
Gold-silver near Red Mountain
IDM Mining also received assay results from surface sampling at Meg and Cambria, areas closer to the proposed underground gold-silver mine at Red Mountain.
Additionally, surface sampling assays from the Meg, Cambria and Dave's Trench areas on the Red Mountain Property, located in the Golden Triangle of northwest BC, 15 kilometers northeast of the mining town of Stewart, BC.
Meg, located about 1,200 meters southwest of the Marc zone, which is included in the Red Mountain resource, returned intriguing gold-silver mineralization.
A 0.5-meter channel sample at Meg averaged 5.67 g/t gold and 12.64 g/t silver; a one-meter-square panel sample averaged 3.88 g/t gold and 56.75 g/t silver; and a grab sample from this target averaged 4.09 g/t gold and 140 g/t silver.
The Meg target area has not been drilled.
IDM Mining also received results from sampling at Cambria, a 1,000- by 500-meter zone exposed by the rapidly melting Cambria icefield. An initial resource for this new zone was included in a mid-2018 resource calculation for Red Mountain.
Reconnaissance mapping and sampling has discovered additional gold mineralization immediately northeast of the Marc zone and north of the initial resource for Cambria. Assays for the 54 grab, channel and panel samples received to-date average 1.44 g/t gold, with the best samples containing 18.74 g/t gold and 193 g/t silver.
IDM said it is encouraged by the prospectivity of this new area of new exposure at Red Mountain.
–SHANE LASLEY
Reader Comments(0)