The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drilling slated for Vertigo gold discovery, Golden Saddle, VG North of 60 Mining News – March 15, 2019
A 2017 fall photo at White Gold's Thistle Creek exploration camp, which is built on the tailings from past placer gold mining on a creek draining the White Gold property.
After a discovery is made, White Gold Corp. uses reverse circulation rigs to do much of the drilling needed to establish and expand resources at its targets and deposits in Yukon's White Gold district.
The helicopter portable and track mounted GT Probe allows White Gold Corp. to collect bedrock-soil interface samples more efficiently and with less environmental disturbance than traditional trenching.
White Gold Corp. plans to invest C$13 million this year on exploration across its 439,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of lands that blanket some 40 percent of Yukon's famed White Gold District.
This program includes follow-up drilling at the exciting Vertigo gold discovery on the JP Ross property; resource expansion drilling on the White Gold and newly acquired QV properties; and regional exploration on priority targets across the company's expansive land package.
White Gold Corp. Chief Technical Advisor Shawn Ryan said the company's systematic approach to exploration across this prolific gold district, backed by the financial and technical support from partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp., has proven successful.
"2019 will be one of the most exciting seasons for White Gold and has the potential to be a transformative year for us," said the renowned Yukon prospector. "Our systematic regional exploration approach is working exceptionally well and resulted in four new discoveries last year – the Vertigo, GS West, Ryan's Surprise and Betty Ford."
Focused on high-grade Vertigo
Vertigo and the wider JP Ross property where this exciting gold discovery is found will be a primary target of White Gold's 2019 exploration.
While carrying out its 2018 regional exploration at JP Ross, a road accessible property about 19 miles (30 kilometers) north of Golden Saddle, the company reported the discovery of high-grade gold at Vertigo.
Testing a 6,000-meter-long structure at Vertigo with a GT Probe, a track-mounted rig designed to take samples from the soil-bedrock interface, returned assays with up to 29.1 g/t gold within two meters of the surface.
Follow-up sampling and drilling carried out last year identified at least 12 mineralized structures over a 1,500- by 650-meter area at Vertigo.
The Vertigo discovery hole, JPRVERRAB18-001, cut 3.05 meters of 56.25 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 3.05 meters, part of a 10.67-meter intercept averaging 17.34 g/t gold.
Results from the other rotary air blast holes that initially tested this target include:
• 3.05 meters of 45 g/t gold starting at a depth of 1.52 meters in hole JPRVERRAB18-011, part of 15.2-meter intercept that averaged 9.65 g/t gold; and
• 24.38 meters of 23.44 g/t gold from surface in JPRVERRAB18-014.
Follow-up reverse circulation drilling confirmed and expanded the high-grade gold tapped by the RAB drills, highlights include:
• 82.3 meters of 3.21 grams per metric ton gold, which includes 1.52 meters of 103.9 g/t gold and 400 g/t silver from surface in hole JPRVERRC18-006;
• 6.1 meters of 14.23 g/t gold, which includes 3.05 meters of 38.56 g/t gold from surface in JPRVERRC18-009; and
• 6.1 meters of 18.59 g/t gold and 188.8 g/t silver from a depth of 24.38 meters, and 4.57 meters of 6.82 g/t gold from a depth of 44.2 meters in JPRVERRC18-013.
Surface grab samples of 139.9 g/t, 134.6 g/t and 132.9 g/t gold have been collected over a 685-meter stretch at Vertigo.
This year, White Gold Corp. plans to carry out around 10,000 meters of diamond drilling designed to evaluate geometry and continuity of mineralized structures discovered last year.
This is to include 7,500 meters of drilling across the entire 2,000-meter-long trend currently defined at the Vertigo target and 2,500 meters reserved to follow up on key zones identified with the initial 2019 drilling.
An RC drill will also be used to test the continuity of mineralization along strike to build additional targets for future diamond drilling.
Additional exploration is expected to be conducted along the 14-kilometer- (8.7 miles) Vertigo Trend and JP Ross property at large.
Topaz, a series of northeast trending gold-in-soil anomalies about 1,100 meters south of Vertigo, and Suspicion, another prospect about 4,000 meters southeast of Vertigo, are expected to be targets of exploration this year.
Prospecting carried out at Topaz last year identified alteration and mineralization similar to Vertigo and samples collected from this area returned as much as 2.79 g/t gold.
Prospecting samples from the Suspicion area returned results of up to 105 g/t gold. The most significant results were collected along the southern end of the Suspicion target, where seven samples associated with elevated silver-lead-bismuth returned grades greater than 1 g/t gold.
"The prospecting results from Suspicion and Topaz are comparable to those originally found at Vertigo and we believe there is strong potential for these targets to host similar mineralization," White Gold Corp. Vice President of Exploration Jodie Gibson said in December.
The regional exploration work at JP Ross will focus on building up several additional target areas through soil sampling, GT Probe testing, geophysics and drilling
"(T)he regional program on the JP Ross property will follow up on multiple other highly anomalous gold targets near the Henderson Creek drainage system where placer gold mining has been taking place since the turn of the century, and will continue to utilize detailed soil sampling, GT probe and RAB drilling to hone in on high-probability targets, which we anticipate will lead to more new discoveries," said Ryan.
Initial work, including GT Probe sampling, is set to begin in April with diamond drilling anticipated to start in May.
White Gold Corp. plans to build a full camp at JP Ross to support this and future exploration programs at this intriguing gold property.
Around Golden Saddle
While expanding Vertigo and seeking new discoveries on JP Ross, the company will continue to make headway at White Gold, the company's most advance project in the district.
According to a calculation completed early last year, the White Gold property hosts 12.32 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.43 g/t (961,000 ounces) gold; plus 5.16 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.7 g/t (282,500 oz) gold in the adjacent Golden Saddle and Arc deposits.
GS Main, a high-grade core of the larger Golden Saddle deposit, contains 832,000 oz gold in the indicated category averaging 2.96 g/t gold and 107,000 oz gold in the inferred category averaging 3.18 g/t gold.
Highlights from the 2018 drilling at Golden Saddle include:
• 44.9 meters of 4.6 g/t gold from a depth of 218 meters in hole WHTGS18D0175, including 17 meters of 8.57 g/t gold; and
• 68 meters of 3.95 g/t gold from 210 meters in WHTGS18D0193, including 47.3 meters of 5.42 g/t gold.
This year's drilling will focus primarily on GS West, a gold zone discovered last year about 750 meters west of the Golden Saddle deposit.
All three holes drilled at GS West during 2018 cut Golden Saddle style mineralization, including 24 meters of 1.92 g/t gold starting from a depth of 117 meters in hole WHTGS18D0184.
GS West will be the target of around 4,500 meters of diamond drilling planned for the White Gold property this year. The Arc deposit will also be targeted with roughly 1,500 meters infill and step-out diamond drilling.
Regional activity on the White Gold property to include evaluation and initial testing of three or four earlier staged targets with RC and RAB drilling.
Other exploration activities will include LiDAR, GT Probe, soil sampling, geophysics and geologic mapping, all conducted to evaluate and define additional drill targets on the property.
Reopening of the Thistle camp is currently underway, with GT Probe and other exploration to begin in
April and drilling to start by mid-May.
First look at VG
White Gold Corp. will also be drilling its newly acquired QV property, which already has 230,000 oz of gold in 4.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.65 g/t gold in the VG deposit.
The company is excited about the potential of this property bordering the northwest side of the White Gold project that it purchased from Comstock Metals Ltd. earlier this year.
"This was a very strategic acquisition for us that immediately increases our global resources with a 230,000 oz inferred gold deposit, which is open along strike and at depth, and has similar mineralization and structural control to our nearby Golden Saddle deposit," said White Gold Corp. CEO.
White Gold plans to carry out 1,000 meters of diamond drilling targeting strike extensions of the VG deposit.
Large portions of the property remain unexplored, which leaves a strong potential for the discovery of additional zones, including several known targets with similar characteristics to Golden Saddle and Vertigo.
"The recently acquired VG deposit will undergo drilling to expand the known resources and we will be applying our proprietary regional exploration program to advance some of our other priority targets," Ryan said.
Other exploration activities at QV will include LiDAR, GT Probe, soil sampling, geophysics and geologic mapping.
Exploring the district
White Gold Corp.'s exploration success in the Yukon is based on a systematic regional exploration program that generates new discoveries such as Vertigo.
This program starts off with soil sampling. The company already has an enormous database of soil samples collected over the White Gold District by Ryan and others over the years, and the company adds to this trove each explorations season.
Promising areas turned up with soil sampling are further investigated with LiDAR surveys, mapping, GT Probe sampling, geophysical surveys and other early staged exploration work to develop drill targets for rotary air blast drilling.
Only the targets that continue to show resource potential with RAB drilling advance to RC and diamond resource drilling.
Focused on high priority targets previously identified, the 2019 regional exploration program will include more than 1,000 GT Probe samples and 15,000 soil samples.
Additional exploration activity to prepare and better understand the company's other targets will include airborne magnetic surveys, LiDAR surveys, drone surveys, induced polarization surveys, geologic mapping and prospecting.
Properties targeted by White Gold Corp.'s 2019 regional program include:
• Betty, which covers the eastern extension of the Coffee Creek fault that hosts the Goldcorp Inc.'s Coffee deposit owned by Goldcorp Inc. At least 10 known target areas occur over a 12-kilometer (7.5 miles) trend of anomalous gold in soils at Betty. Highlights from 2018 RAB drilling at one target, Betty Ford, included 50.29 meters of 1.08 g/t gold from a depth of 4.57 meters in hole BETFRDRAB18-002. Highlights from 2018 drilling at the Betty White target included gold mineralization cut in every hole, with individual results of up to 3.61 g/t gold.
• Black Hills, a road accessible property adjacent to the east side of JP Ross. There exist numerous untested gold-in-soil anomalies that are coincident with the regional-scale structures that cut through the property.
• Dime, a property that borders numerous historical mineral occurrences and placer gold streams about 70 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Dawson City. White Gold Corp. said at least three untested gold-in-soil anomalies on the property warrant follow up work.
• Nolan, a property 50 kilometers (32 miles) west of Dawson City that covers multiple placer gold bearing creeks. The company said numerous gold-in-soil anomalies on the southern end of this property have yet to be investigated. This includes two robust targets in the Hart Mt. area – Hart South, a 2,000- by 400-meter trend with soil values ranging up to 0.539 g/t gold, and Hart East, a 2,500- by 900-meter area that has yielded as much as 0.399 g/t gold. Prospecting in the Hart area returned grab samples of epithermal-style quartz veins with up to 0.172 g/t gold, 1,467 g/t silver, and 10.63 percent lead.
From investigating the exciting Vertigo discovery, to expanding resources and exploring for new discoveries across the wider White Gold District, the company is excited for what 2019 has in store.
"All and all this should be our best season yet," Ryan said.
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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