The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
ATAC says exploration indicates orogenic gold mineralization North of 60 Mining News – September 18, 2020
A helicopter delivers equipment for ATAC's initial phase of 2020 exploration at the Airstrip gold target in the Yukon.
ATAC Resources Ltd. Sept. 14 announced that the initial phase of 2020 exploration at its Rau project in the Yukon indicates the presence of a large orogenic gold system at the Airstrip target.
Airstrip is roughly 5,000 meters southeast of Tiger, a carbonate replacement deposit that hosts 4.53 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 3.19 grams per metric ton (464,000 oz) of gold.
A preliminary economic assessment published earlier this year outlined plans for an open pit mine at Tiger that is expected to produce roughly 267,000 oz of gold over a six-year mine life.
Airstrip has the potential to provide a large source of satellite gold mineralization.
To investigate this potential further, ATAC's phase-1 2020 program included 12 shallow rotary air blast drill holes, prospecting, mapping, trenching, and trail building focused on better defining gold mineralization at the largely overburden covered Airstrip target. This work was assisted by trail building and excavator trenching exposed outcrop and subcrop across parts of the anomaly, with rock samples returning up to 6.39 g/t gold.
Highlights from the RAB drilling include 22.86 meters averaging 0.66 g/t gold in hole ASR-16-004; 13.71 meters of 1.43 g/t gold in ASR-16-006; and 36.58 meters of 0.51 g/t gold in ASR-16-018.
ATAC says the results of the phase-1 program suggest the Airstrip target is an orogenic gold system.
"The identification of an orogenic gold system at the Airstrip target is very exciting. These types of systems have the potential to host significant bulk-tonnage gold deposits, and this is the first identification of this style of mineralization in the area," said ATAC Resources President and CEO Graham Downs.
The RAB drilling completed so far has been carried out over a 1,000- by 500-meter area of the roughly 11.5-square-kilometer (4.4 square miles) gold-in-soils anomaly at Airstrip.
"The Airstrip anomaly stretches over six kilometers (3.7 miles) in length, and we've only systematically evaluated a fraction of that to date," said Downs.
ATAC has two diamond drills and one RAB rig targeting Airstrip during the second phase of 2020 exploration at Rau.
The first diamond drill holes will twin and extend mineralization tapped in 2016 RAB holes – ASR-16-006, which cut 13.71 meters averaging 1.43 g/t gold, and ASR-16-004, which cut 22.86 meters averaging 0.66 g/t gold. Both holes ended in mineralization at the roughly 70-meter maximum depth of the RAB drill used.
Subsequent diamond holes will target new areas of bedrock mineralization and key structures identified by the initial phase of 2020 exploration, including twinning and extending gold mineralization encountered in ASR-20-018 and ASR-20-019, as well as the 6.39 g/t rock sample.
RAB drilling is targeting kilometer-scale step-outs across the Airstrip gold-in-soil anomaly, as well as high-priority regional targets elsewhere across the 660-square kilometer (255 square miles) Rau project.
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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