The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Late season drilling follows up on high-grade zinc at Boundary North of 60 Mining News – August 21, 2020
Fireweed crews are exploring for discovery targets across the district-scale MacMillan Pass zinc property in eastern Yukon.
Fireweed Zinc Ltd. Aug. 19 announced it is ramping up a late season drilling and exploration program at its Macmillan Pass zinc project in eastern Yukon.
This program, which will include expansion of known zones of high-grade zinc mineralization and exploration of new zones, is being funded by a C$5.2 million financing completed earlier this month.
"Our recent financing has allowed us to mount a big exploration program this summer that will run late into the season," said Fireweed Zinc CEO Brandon Macdonald.
Two deposits at Macmillan Pass – Tom and Jason – host 11.21 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.59% (1.63 billion pounds) zinc, 2.48% (610 million lb) lead and 21.33 grams per metric ton (7.7 million ounces) silver; plus 39.47 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 5.84% (5.08 billion lb) zinc, 3.14% (2.73 billion lb) lead and 38.15 g/t (48.4 million oz) silver.
Boundary, a zone about 15 road-kilometers (nine miles) west of Jason that has the potential to expand and upgrade these resources, will be the primary target of this year's drilling.
One hole drilled at Boundary last year cut 100 meters of 7.94% zinc from surface, including 6.4 meters of 42.88% zinc.
In addition to further testing high-grade mineralization at Boundary, the company plans to drill other exploration targets across the 544-square-kilometer (210 square miles) MacMillan Pass property.
"Our field crews have already been hard at work exploring other targets that we may also drill test in search of new discoveries," said Macdonald.
One such target is Bog, a zone about 1,100 meters northeast of Boundary. One hole drilled at Bog in 1982 cut 11.5 meters of 5.1% zinc and 8.8 meters of 6% zinc. Historical trenching demonstrates that surface mineralization at Bog remains open to the west.
Fireweed also plans to drill 240 Mile, a target identified by a large gravity anomaly that may indicate buried mineralization between the Tom and Jason deposits.
Such gravity anomalies mark known mineralization at MacMillan Pass, including the Tom and Jason deposits.
Crews are currently carrying out ground gravity surveys at the western end of a 30-kilometer-long mineralized trend known as the Fertile Corridor. Fireweed believes Boundary, found toward the western end of this corridor may be a large mineralized feeder system in this area, much like Jason and Tom toward the eastern end of the corridor.
In addition to the ground geophysics, 1,300 line-kilometer airborne Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM)-magnetics geophysics survey is expected to be flown over the western portion of the Fertile Corridor in the coming weeks.
Geological mapping, geochemical sampling, and prospecting is also being carried to define drill targets at the west end of the Fertile Corridor.
"The next couple of months promises to be a busy and exciting time for the project," said Macdonald.
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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