Millrock amasses Pogo area gold claims

Millrock Resources Inc. April 24 reported that it has staked a large block of claims adjacent to Northern Star Resources Pogo gold mine property in Interior Alaska and has attracted funds to explore Millrock's expanded land package in the Goodpaster Mining District.

"We believe that the Goodpaster District will ultimately prove to be a gold mining camp of significant stature. The area has seen very little exploration despite the obvious potential and proximity to infrastructure," said Millrock Resources President and CEO Greg Beischer. "We have amassed a dominant land position and intend to do our best to discover one or more gold deposits on the claims we have staked."

Prior to staking the new claims, Millrock already owned and optioned 141 state of Alaska mining claims immediately west of the Pogo Mine property. A recent discovery, known as Goodpaster, on the Pogo property has spurred new interest in Millrock's West Pogo claims. The discovery hole at this prospect tapped 6.9 meters averaging 3.2 grams per ton gold and the second cut 5.3 meters of 54.1 g/t gold.

Geophysics on the Pogo property indicate this mineralization trends onto the West Pogo property.

The expanded West Pogo property now covers 43,468 acres of prospective land. Previous explorers have identified the Tourmaline Ridge, Half-Ounce Gulch and ER prospects on this property.

Millrock said these prospects contain elevated gold, arsenic, and bismuth surface soil and rock sample anomaly clusters related to northeast and northwest-trending high-angle faults. Drilling by prior operators returned gold-bearing intercepts in high-angle veins. The exploration company postulates that the steep veins intersected by prior workers at West Pogo may lead to thicker, higher-grade, shallow-dipping gold veins.

In addition to expanding West Pogo, Millrock staked 42,580 acres of claims covering the Shaw Creek trend, a prospective corridor that extends roughly 19 miles southwest from West Pogo.

The Shaw-LMS trend claims cover stream sediment, soil, and rock samples containing elevated gold, arsenic, and bismuth geochemical anomalies that appear to be associated with intrusive rocks near splays off the Shaw Creek fault.

Millrock also staked 403 claims on the east side of the Pogo Mine property.

This 54,340-acre land package, known as East Pogo also covers several known prospects – Scott, Boundary, and Cal-Surf.

These three prospects contain elevated gold, arsenic, and bismuth surface sample anomaly clusters related to northeast and northwest-oriented high-angle faults. Drilling conducted on the Boundary and Cal Surf prospects by previous operators intersected gold-bearing veins.

Together, the East and West Pogo projects cover 27 miles along the Pogo Trend of gold occurrences.

EMX Royalty Corp., which generates royalties through low cost property acquisition and early-stage exploration, provided Millrock with the funding to stake its expanded land package in the Goodpaster District.

EMX has agreed to invest C$1 million into Millrock through a private placement financing that involves the purchase of 7.14 million units, consisting of one Millrock share and one purchase warrant, at C14 cents per unit. The subscription price represents a significant premium to Millrock's current market price. In return for the premium financing, Millrock has agreed to grant certain royalty interests to EMX.

Millrock Resources and EMX Royalty have agreed that the investment funds will be used in the Goodpaster District.

"We are pleased to collaborate with EMX to maximize our chances of finding gold ore bodies," said Beischer. "There has only been one exploration push in the Goodpaster District since the discovery of Pogo in 1994. It is common in productive gold mining camps that multiple deposits are discovered. So far, there has only been one mine developed in the Goodpaster District."

–SHANE LASLEY