The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Freegold plans 10,000 meters to trace Cleary Hill vein system North of 60 Mining News – June 19, 2020
Remnants of the Beistline shaft from historic high-grade gold mining on Freegold Venture's Golden Summit property about 25 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
Freegold Ventures Ltd. June 16 announced the resumption of its 2020 program at Golden Summit with a planned 10,000-meter drill program targeting high-grade gold mineralization encountered on the property north of Fairbanks, Alaska earlier this year.
A winter drill program that got underway in early March tested Freegold Ventures' theory that higher grade gold mineralization extends west from the historic Cleary Hill Mine, which produced 281,000 ounces of gold from ore averaging 1.3 oz per ton before the operation was shuttered during World War II.
The first hole of the winter program, GSDL2001, cut 188 meters averaging 3.69 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 360 meters. This includes a two-meter intercept from 365.2 meters that averaged 169.5 g/t (4.9 oz/t) gold – reminiscent of the bonanza grades historically mined at Cleary Hill.
The bottom 20 meters of this hole averaged 9.87 g/t gold, indicating that some of the highest-grade gold encountered in this hole drilled nearly 600 meters southwest of the Cleary Hill Mine workings extends to depth.
GSDL2002, drilled 150 meters east of GSDL2001, cut nine meters of 2.4 g/t gold from a depth of 156 meters. This hole had just begun encountering the targeted Cleary vein system when Freegold suspended drilling at Golden Summit in response to COVID-19.
Though the program was cut short, investors were excited by what they saw from the 1.5 holes drilled. Freegold raised C$10.75 million in two tranches that closed in May and June, including C$6 million invested by Eric Sprott.
With funds in the bank and an exciting high-grade gold target to follow-up on, Freegold plans to drill 15 to 20 holes to test its interpretation that the strike of the Cleary Hill vein system extends west of the old Cleary Hill Mine working towards the Dolphin intrusive, which hosts a bulk tonnage resource at Golden Summit.
According to a 2016 calculation, Golden Summit hosts 61.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.69 g/t ton (1.36 million ounces) gold; and 71.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.69 g/t (1.58 million oz) gold.
The higher-grade gold being tapped in the Cleary Hill vein system has the potential to bolster the overall resource grade at Golden Summit, a highway accessible project about 25 miles north of Fairbanks and adjacent to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine property.
Drilling during the current program will focus on systematically drilling the areas to the north, west and east of the initial 2020 holes to further test and refine Freegold's revised interpretation.
The exploration company has implemented extensive safety protocols to mitigate the risks of spreading COVID-19 and to protect its contractors, employees and community.
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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