The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
COVID-interrupted program at Aurora to resume by late-May North of 60 Mining News – May 8, 2020
Drilling the Aurora gold target at 64North before the 2020 winter program was suspended due to COVID-19 concerns.
A geophysical map showing magnetic lows (purple) and diorite intrusions (red) at the Pogo Mine area and Aurora target, as well as the holes drilled by Millrock and Resolution in March and holes planned when drilling resumes later this month.
Millrock Resources Inc. and Resolution Minerals Ltd. May 13 announced the balance of assay results from winter drilling at the 64North project in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District and plans for late-May resumption of the program that was cut short due to COVID-19 concerns.
Millrock's 64North project includes nine claim blocks – West Pogo, Shaw, Eagle, LMS-X, South Pogo, East Pogo, North Pogo, Last Chance and Divide – covering roughly 160,000 acres in Goodpaster, a gold-rich district anchored by Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo Mine.
Australia-based Resolution Minerals has an option to earn a 60 percent joint venture interest in this large gold project by investing US$20 million into exploration, plus making US$200,000 in cash payments and issuing 38 million Resolution shares to Millrock over four years.
Northern Star has traced high-grade gold in the Goodpaster discovery zone to the western border of the Pogo property and just east of the Aurora target area of the West Pogo claim block being tested by Millrock and Resolution.
During a Resolution-funded drill program that got underway in March, the 64North partners completed one hole and partially completed a second before drill crews opted to fly home ahead of COVID-19 travel mandates.
Both holes encountered anomalous gold along with bismuth, arsenic and tellurium indicative of Pogo-style mineralization.
Millrock said the mineralization zone encountered in the first hole, 20AU001, is similar in appearance to that reported from the Goodpaster deposit being drilled by Northern Star just east of Aurora.
"The core drilled in the first two holes of the program demonstrated a Pogo-like system with an abundance of alteration and sulfide mineralization indicating a robust hydrothermal environment," said Millrock Resources President and CEO Greg Beischer. "There are eleven gold-anomalous intersections in the first hole and three in the second hole. The style of mineralization and alteration intersected appears to be similar in character to Northern Star's Goodpaster gold deposit."
Hole 20AU002 was suspended due to COVID-19 safety concerns about a third of the way to the planned depth of 600 meters. The hole was targeting a conductive zone near the interpreted position of faults thought to be mineralizing pathways. Though this hole never reached the depth of the target, several quartz veins with anomalous gold values were intersected.
The Aurora target is a 2,000- by 5,000-meter zone of low-magnetic rocks adjacent to a late diorite intrusion, a setting very similar to the deposits being mined at Pogo. Millrock postulates that the late diorite body intruded along a westerly extension of the Liese Creek fault, which is known to have played a key role in the genesis of the Pogo gold deposits.
High-angle gold-bearing quartz veins have been intersected by prior drilling at West Pogo, however, the few holes drilled by earlier workers did not go deep enough to intersect the low-angle, regional shear zone that is known to host gold on the adjacent Pogo property. Millrock believes this structure exists at the Aurora target. Numerous zones of mafic rocks, fault zones and quartz veins intercepted in drill hole 20AU001 fit with the exploration model. The low-angle, regional shear preferentially ruptured the mafic lithological layers. The Aurora target is in this regional shear.
Millrock said a comprehensive COVID-19 safety plan with clear protocols has been established to help keep the team safe when drilling resumes at Aurora later this month.
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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