The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2020 - Published January 19, 2021
Constantine Vice President of Exploration Michael Vande Guchte inspects the Vug vein alongside McKinley Creek at the Big Nugget Gold project in Southeast Alaska.
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd.'s 2020 program focused primarily on exploring the hardrock source of Porcupine gold placer mining on its Palmer project in Southeast Alaska.
Constantine has traditionally focused its exploration on the discovery and expansion of volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits at Palmer. This work has outlined 4.68 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 5.23% (539 million pounds) zinc, 1.49% (154 million lb) copper, 30.8 grams per metric ton (4.6 million ounces) silver, 0.3% (451,000 oz) gold and 23.9% (1.12 million metric tons) barite; plus 9.59 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.95% (1.05 billion lb) zinc, 0.59% (124 million lb) copper, 69.3 g/t (120.6 million oz) silver, 0.39 g/t (21.4 million oz) gold and 27.7% (2.65 million metric tons) barite.
A 2019 preliminary economic assessment outlines plans for a 3,500-metric-ton-per-day mill at Palmer that would produce 1.07 billion lb of zinc, 196 million lb of copper, 18 million oz of silver, 91,000 oz of gold and 2.89 million metric tons of barite over an initial 11-year mine life.
The estimated US$278 million in capital costs to build this mine would be split between the Constantine Mining LLC joint venture partners, Constantine (51%) and Dowa Metals & Mining Co. Ltd. (49%).
While working to secure permits for underground development needed to further expand and upgrade the deposits ahead of more detailed engineering studies, the JV partners carried out surficial geological work at South Wall and AG, deposits that host the bulk of the resource.
At the same time, Constantine explored the gold potential on parts of the Palmer property outside of the JV.
"After the successful spinout of the company's gold assets into HighGold Mining Inc. last year, the company has made a decision to evaluate new opportunities for gold in addition to its flagship massive sulfide base metal Palmer project," said Constantine Metal Resources President and CEO Garfield MacVeigh.
Placer gold was discovered in the Porcupine Creek area of the Palmer property in 1898 and considerable mining was carried out in this creek.
Two key gold prospects, Golden Eagle, and McKinley Creek Falls, are located upstream from placer operations along McKinley Creek, made famous by Discovery Channel's Gold Rush series.
Rock sampling by the U.S. Bureau of Mines at Golden Eagle in the 1980s returned assays with as much as 531.1 g/t gold from the Vug vein. Rock sampling downstream of Vug returned grades as high as 182.13 g/t.
Samples with 1.37 to 8.96 g/t gold were also collected from veins at McKinley Creek Falls. A 0.76-meter chip sample at this prospect averaged 24.83 g/t gold and 280 parts per million zinc.
There has been no modern, systematic exploration of these gold prospects. Something Constantine is beginning to rectify with a 2020 exploration program that included the collection of 95 rock samples at Golden Eagle and other prospects, 544 soil samples, and reconnaissance geology.
Constantine said the geological environment of the gold prospects show similarities with the Alaska Juneau (AJ) Mine that yielded 3.5 million oz of gold and 2.2 million oz of silver from the late 1800s until the mine closed in 1944.
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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