The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Including 3 meters of 19.3 g/t gold in one hole at Michigan North of 60 Mining News – September 18, 2020
Given the success in 2019, Tectonic Metals decided to use Ground Truth America's rotary air blast rig for the 3,202-meter drill program at the Tibbs gold project this year.
Tectonic Metals VP of Exploration Eric Buitenhuis investigates Seventymile, a large and underexplored Alaska gold property.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 14 reported additional high-grade gold intercepts from drilling at the Michigan zone on the company's Tibbs project in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District.
This year's drilling at Michigan focused on systematically stepping out to the northeast and southwest along a prominent northeast trending lineament in the center of the zone, where 2019 rotary air blast drilling cut 28.95 meters averaging 6.03 grams per metric ton gold.
Given the success last year in utilizing Ground Truth America's RAB rig during 2019, Tectonic chose to utilize this cost-effective and rapid drill method at Tibbs this year.
A total of 3,202 meters of drilling was completed at Tibbs this year, well exceeding Tectonic's 2,500-meter goal.
Slightly more than half the 2020 meterage at Tibbs was completed in 11 holes drilled at Michigan that outlined gold mineralization over 275 meters of strike.
Highlights from this drilling include:
• 9.14 meters averaging 6.71 g/t gold, including 3.05 meters of 19.3 g/t gold in hole TBRB20-029.
• 12.91 meters averaging 2.61 g/t gold, including 3.05 meters of 5.56 g/t gold in TBRB20-026.
• 7.62 meters averaging 3.73 g/t gold, including 1.52 meters of 12.8 g/t gold in TBRB20-025.
Tectonic said that it encountered stacked, low-angle tabular bodies of mineralization cut by high-angle structures, which is reminiscent of Northern Star Resources' Pogo gold mine about 20 miles west of Tibbs.
"The presence of high-grade gold mineralization within broad, lower-tenor mineralized envelopes at Michigan is indicative of a productive hydrothermal system within the corridor, and the intersection of low and high-angle structures appears to result in an increase in both tenor and width of mineralization," said Tectonic Metals Vice President of Exploration Eric Buitenhuis. "These newly recognized low-angle mineralized features may be related to low-angle regional shearing, a critical structural control on mineralization in the Goodpaster District, including at the Pogo mine. Interestingly, several low-angle faults have been mapped within Paleozoic gneisses in the western region of the Tibbs project – an ideal Pogo analogue."
The balance of the 2020 drill program at Tibbs tested for additional Michigan-style structures at Lower Trench and Wolverine, two additional targets along a prospective corridor that extends 3,000 meters northeast from Michigan. Assays are pending from this drilling.
In addition to drilling, Tectonic collected 1,453 soil samples to expand coverage over the low-angle thrust faults mapped in the western region of the Tibbs project.
Tectonic is also planning to conduct a follow-up induced polarization geophysical survey over a more than 1,000-meter-long structural corridor at Michigan in late September. In order to rapidly test the scale potential of the Michigan Zone, this IP survey is designed to determine the geophysical signature of drilled, near-surface mineralization at Michigan within the center of the target and test for a similar signature both at depth and along strike within the corridor.
Tectonic also completed a 26-hole (2,852 meters) drill campaign at Seventymile, a gold exploration project about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northeast of Tibbs. Assays from this drilling are pending.
"We look forward to announcing the remaining results from the Lower Trench and Wolverine Zones, the soil sampling and prospecting programs, and the Seventymile drill campaign as soon as they are available," said Buitenhuis.
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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