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
Drilling at midnight during the long summer days in Yukon's legendary Klondike Gold District.
Klondike Gold aims to identify a starter pit at the Lone Star and Stander zones on its namesake property between the famed Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks.
Klondike Gold Corp. drilled roughly 50 holes during the 2020 program at its Klondike District property, a 586-square-kilometer (226 square miles) land package that blankets much of the legendary 20-million-ounce placer gold district near Dawson City, Yukon.
This program included four phases of drilling at the Lone Star and Stander (formerly known as Nugget) zones that lie between the Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks of Klondike Gold Rush fame.
The initial phase of drilling included 13 infill holes at Lone Star, a 5,000-meter-long zone of gold mineralization that runs alongside a major fault above the famed Bonanza Creek.
Focused on an area where Lone Star outcrops, these holes tested for consistency of gold grades and the boundaries of mineralization in an area being considered for a starter pit for mining.
Highlighted intercepts from this drilling include 61.1 meters averaging 1.07 grams per metric ton gold; 49.1 meters averaging 0.8 g/t gold; 34 meters averaging 0.94 g/t gold; and 42.4 meters averaging 0.71 g/t gold.
The second phase of 2020 drilling included five infill drill holes to test the main area of outcropping gold mineralization identified along the Stander zone. Situated about 1,300 meters to the southwest and running roughly parallel to Lone Star, Stander is the site of some of the highest grade gold intercepts on the Klondike property.
One hole drilled at Stander in 2019 cut 2.5 meters averaging 404 g/t gold and 415 g/t silver, including one meter of 1,009 g/t gold with 1,035 g/t silver.
This, however, is deeper than the potential starter pit mineralization being targeted with the five holes being drilled during the second phase of Klondike Gold's 2020 program.
Highlights from Klondike Gold's previous near surface drilling at Stander include 14.3 meters of 5.1 g/t gold; 21.5 meters of 4.3 g/t gold; and 23 meters of 2.2 g/t gold.
One of the holes drilled during 2020 cut 21 meters of 3.93 g/t gold.
The third phase of drilling included four holes testing for possible parallel structural repeats of the Stander Zone to explain down-slope gold anomalies identified by GT Probe sampling completed by Dawson City-based GroundTruth Exploration.
Three of four holes contained weakly gold-mineralized quartz veins. Klondike Gold says the gold anomaly identified by GT Probe sampling remains unexplained.
In September, Klondike launched a 27-hole fourth phase of drilling targeting the expansion of Lone Star.
In addition to its hardrock gold exploration properties, Klondike owns three placer gold properties in the Yukon – Upper Eldorado Creek, which covers 3.2 square kilometers (1.2 square miles) of the Upper Eldorado Creek and Chief Gulch drainages; Eldorado Bench, which covers 3.6 square (1.4 square miles) along the east side of Eldorado Creek; and Montana Creek, a placer gold property near the Indian River about 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of Dawson City.
In 2019, Klondike Gold leased the Upper Eldorado Creek placer gold property to Dulac Mining. Under the three-year agreement, Klondike Gold will receive a direct 10% gold production royalty from mining on the placer property payable in raw gold. Dulac carried out mining on the Upper Eldorado Creek claims during 2020.
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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