The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2019 – Published Nov. 1, 2019
A drill test for continuity of this high-grade gold mineralization previously encountered at Aben Resources' Forrest Kerr property in British Columbia.
Aben Resources Ltd. had drills turning on two gold-rich properties during 2019 – Justin in southeastern Yukon and Forrest Kerr in the Golden Triangle region of British Columbia.
While Justin is the most northerly of the two projects, the terrain there provides for earlier access, making this property adjacent to Golden Predator Mining Corp.'s 3 Aces project the first target for exploration this year.
The 2019 program at Justin included drilling, prospecting, geologic mapping and surface sampling across the property.
A diamond drill rig completed 963 meters of drilling in four holes at POW, a zone that contains gold-bearing vein, breccia and skarn replacement mineralization.
Discovery drilling carried out at POW in 2011 and 2012 cut wide zones of lower grade intrusion-related gold mineralization. Highlights from this drilling include 60 meters of 1.19 g/t gold and 46.4 meters of 1.49 g/t gold.
The four core holes drilled this year at POW evaluated the potential for bulk-tonnage gold mineralization and tested for the continuity of higher-grade skarn mineralization along strike.
JN19020 cut 15.4 meters of 1.5 g/t gold; JN19021 cut 3.3 meters of 0.9 g/t gold; JN19031 did not return significant results; and JN19039 cut 9.5 meter of 0.2 g/t gold.
The program got started with 462 meters of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling in 16 holes at the Lost Ace zone, where 2018 trenching encountered up to 20.8 grams per metric ton gold over 4.4 meters, including 88.2 g/t gold over one meter.
Aben said RAB drilling is an efficient method of quickly evaluating this high-grade, near surface gold target that shows many similarities to the orogenic-style gold mineralization being bulk sampled on the neighboring 3 Aces property.
This year's RAB drilling, however, did not tap the high-gold grades turned up in trenching.
While Justin was the first exploration target of 2019, Forrest Kerr continues to be the primary focus of Aben's exploration.
The company kicked off its 2019 Forrest Kerr exploration with a phase-1 program that included more than 5,000 meters of drilling in 10 holes.
This phase-1 program targeted the North Boundary area, where drilling over the previous two seasons have encountered high-grade gold.
One such hole, FK18-10 cut 10 meters of 38.7 grams per metric ton (1.12 ounces per metric ton) gold from a depth of 114 meters, including one meter of 331 g/t (9.65 oz/t) gold.
This is very similar to the 326 g/t gold Noranda encountered in RG91-16, a historical hole drilled roughly 200 meters to the south.
FK19-46, a hole drilled this year to test for continuity of this high-grade gold mineralization, encountered multiple mineralized horizons. The entire 500.5-meter length of this hole averaged 0.12 g/t gold, including a one-meter section of 12.4 g/t gold.
Another hole, FK19-50, tested the downward extension of a mineralized horizon discovered in holes FK18-17 and FK18-18 drilled last year.
FK18-17 cut 15 meters of 3.18 g/t gold from 232 meters and one meter of 31.4 g/t gold from 261 meters; and FK18-18 cut four meters of 4 g/t gold.
FK19-50 cut 61.7 meters of 0.46 g/t gold. Aben said this longer section includes intermittent higher-grade gold intercepts within broad lower grade envelopes associated with fractures and fault structures.
Aben said the mineralized structures correlate very well with magnetic highs that were delineated by an airborne survey flown over the entire Boundary zone in May. Thus far, drilling in this part of the Forrest Kerr Property has only tested a small portion of the potentially mineralized structures defined by the magnetic survey.
FK19-51 drilled roughly 500 meters south of the main mineralized core at North Boundary, cut sporadic gold-silver-copper-zinc-lead within strong alteration.
Gold mineralization in this hole was generally low grade and not as strongly correlated to the repetitive sequences of copper mineralization.
Hole FK19-52 was drilled from the same set-up at a steeper angle cut 16 meters averaging 2.22 g/t gold, 2.39 g/t silver and 0.31 percent copper.
"As we work our way south of the mineralized core of the North Boundary zone, we are looking for potential connectivity with the historic, high-grade gold discovery made by Noranda in 1991," said Aben Resources President and CEO Jim Pettit.
Encouraged by the results, in August Aben announced a phase-2 program that extended drilling into the fall.
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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