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
Geologist Marilyne Lacasse at StrikePoint's Willoughby gold-silver project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle.
A building from the historic mining on the high-grade Porter silver project on Mount Rainey overlooking Stewart, BC.
Despite being challenged by COVID-19, inclement weather, and a slow return of assay results, StrikePoint Gold Inc. crews remained on target while exploring the company's high-grade Willoughby gold-silver and Porter Silver projects in British Columbia's Golden Triangle during 2020.
This exploration was funded largely by Eric Sprott, who invested C$1.96 million to purchase all 23 million StrikePoint shares sold for C8.5 cents each.
"With this investment by Eric Sprott, StrikePoint is positioned to advance our high-grade gold and silver properties in Golden Triangle. We have the targets, the team and now the capital to unlock value for our shareholders," StrikePoint Gold CEO Shawn Khunkhun said upon the July closing of the financing.
Following the financing, StrikePoint began its 2020 field work with surface exploration and drilling focused on improving continuity of high-grade mineralization at Willoughby and testing broad zones of mineralization encountered in previous drilling and surface sampling on this gold-silver project about four miles (seven kilometers) east of Ascot Resources Ltd.'s Red Mountain Mine project.
Drilling in the 1990s tapped high-grade gold and silver in the North and Wilby zones at Willoughby.
Highlights from the past drilling at North include 5.5 meters of 53.2 grams per metric ton gold and 211.1 g/t silver; three meters of 113.7 g/t gold and 121.8 g/t silver; and 2.9 meters of 352.2 g/t gold and 194.6 g/t silver.
Some of the best historical intercepts from Wilby include 6.8 meters of 20.45 g/t gold and 42.84 g/t silver; 12 meters of 12.66 g/t gold and 59.43 g/t silver; and 11.7 meters of 7.62 g/t gold and 1.43 g/t silver.
In recent years, multiple new zones of gold and silver in bedrock have been revealed by the retreat of glaciers and snowfields.
Grab samples were collected from three of these newly exposed areas – Willow, Wilkie, and Lower Icefall – during the 2019 field season.
Highlights from this sampling include 16.5 g/t gold and 59 g/t silver in a rock picked up at Willow; 67.3 g/t and 164 g/t silver from Wilkie; and 2.71 g/t gold and 281 g/t silver from Lower Icefall.
While awaiting assays from further surface sampling and 1,700 meters of drilling during the first phase of 2020 exploration at Willoughby, StrikePoint crews investigated Porter, a past producing high-grade silver property on Mount Rainey overlooking the town of Stewart, BC.
Early 20th century mining of the vein systems that run through Mount Rainey produced roughly 2.2 million ounces of silver from 27,123 metric tons of ore averaging 2,542 g/t silver.
According to a resource estimate prepared in 2012, Porter hosts 394,700 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 868 g/t (11 million ounces) silver, 3.4% lead and 1.4% zinc; and 88,900 metric tons of inferred resources grading 595 g/t (1.7 million oz) silver.
A 25-hole drill program carried out at Porter in 2018 cut high-grade silver mineralization within and beyond the historical resource.
This mineralization is within shear-hosted, silver-rich vein systems. So far, individual structures have been traced through surface mapping for over 200 meters along strike and 1,000 meters down-dip with widths ranging from one to thirteen meters.
StrikePoint believes the ore mined from Prosperity-Porter Idaho and Silverado, the historic mines on Mount Rainey, could represent opposite ends of a larger mineralized system. Recent glacial retreat has exposed the ground between these past-producing mine sites, providing the opportunity to explore for a connection between the deposits.
"Our primary goal is to discover new silver veins in order to connect the Silverado mine on the north side with the Prosperity-Porter Idaho mines on the south side of the mineralized structural corridor," said Khunkhun.
StrikePoint's portfolio also includes several exploration properties in the Yukon, including Pluto and Golden Oly.
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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