The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – July 5, 2019
A geologist prospecting Solstice Gold's Nunavut property, which covers a section of the Archean Rankin Inlet Greenstone Belt that also hosts Agnico Eagle Mines' Meliadine gold mine.
Solstice Gold President Marty Tunney, Vice President of Exploration Ian Russell and Nunavut Project Manager Terry Bursey inspect outcrop on the company's gold project.
Solstice Gold Corp. July 2 announced plans for its first ever drill program on the Nunavut (formerly Kahuna) project, a large property roughly seven kilometers (4.4 miles) east of Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd.'s Meliadine Mine.
Solstice Gold was formed early last year, when Dunnedin Ventures Inc. spun out the gold prospective portions of its Kahuna diamond project. The portions of Kahuna retained by Dunnedin host more than 40 diamondiferous kimberlite targets.
Following its formation, Solstice carried out the first systematic, gold-focused exploration at Kahuna. This 2018 program included the collection of 2,049 till samples, 2,905 boulder and outcrop samples, as well as 1,675 line-kilometers of ground magnetic surveying.
This work turned up three target areas – QEMS, Westeros Fold and Megafold NW.
Sampling of a large boulder field at Qaiqtuq, which is within the QEMS target area, returned 66 grams per metric ton gold. Sampling of bedrock outcrop in this same area returned up to 5.74 g/t gold.
Many of the gold-bearing boulders at Qaiqtuq are interpreted to be locally derived due to their association with gold-bearing outcrop, large size, angularity and relative abundance.
Significantly the Qaiqtuq boulder field was discovered late in the 2018 field season and has only been partially explored over its inferred 3,000-meter strike length.
At least three target areas occur in close proximity to Qaiqtuq, based on the presence of geochemical and geophysical anomalies related to an extensive regional magnetic low which is interpreted to be associated to alteration and mineralization in this area.
Westeros Fold hosts two gold targets – South Westeros and North Westeros.
Located on the southern limb of the Westeros fold, South Westeros is a roughly 5,000-meter-long area of highly magnetic units cut by faults. Boulder grab samples from this area returned up to 11.7g/t gold.
North Westeros is interpreted to be coincident with large, regional fault structures. Grab samples collected from this area contained as much as 12.7 g/t gold.
Megafold NW is situated on the northwestern limb of a very large regional fold. Out of the 60 boulder and 131 outcrop samples collected from this area, 21 contained more than 0.5 g/t gold. The best sample returned 24.4 g/t gold from a one-meter-wide quartz vein in iron formation outcrop. Mapping and magnetic data along this 5,000-meter-long target area suggest the presence of numerous parallel and likely folded iron formation units.
Solstice is currently carrying out additional mapping and sampling to further refine targets for an up to 20-hole core drill program planned for Nunavut Gold this summer.
The QEMS target area, which is immediately adjacent to and along strike of Agnico Eagle's Meliadine claims, is expected to be a primary target of this program.
Solstice said the summer drilling will be limited to land-based targets, leaving highly prospective ice-based targets for winter follow-up.
"Agnico Eagle's Meliadine mine, which reached commercial production last month, is only seven kilometers from Solstice's claims in the Rankin Gold Belt. We are looking forward to drilling targets in the hunt for the next potential gold discovery in an exciting region," said Solstice Gold Executive Chairman David Adamson.
–SHANE LASLEY
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