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
A geologist carries out mapping and prospecting, an integral part of White Gold's 2020 exploration program carried out across the more than 1-million-acre land package the company owns in its namesake district in Canada's Yukon.
White Gold Corp. continues its systematic exploration of dozens of targets it has identified across its more than 1-million-acre land package in Yukon's White Gold District.
In June, the Yukon-focused gold exploration company announced that longtime strategic partners and new institutional investors are participating in a C$6 million financing that involves the issuance of 6.67 million flow-through shares at C90 cents each.
Gold majors Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp. each bought enough of these shares to maintain their 17.1% interest in White Gold. Renowned resource investor Eric Sprott also invested in the junior exploration company.
"We are very grateful for the continued support of our major shareholders and excited to welcome Eric Sprott as a new shareholder," said White Gold Corp. CEO David D'Onofrio.
The bulk of the C$4 million 2020 program focused on the exciting new discoveries made on the White Gold, Hen, and JP Ross properties at the heart of the company's enormous land package. The balance of the program advanced other targets spanning 160 kilometers (100 miles), from the newly staked Tea property just south of Newmont's Coffee gold project, to the Nolan property between Dawson City and the Alaska border.
White Gold began its 2020 program with drilling at Titan, an intriguing target on the road accessible Hen property.
One soil sample from Titan returned 113 grams per metric ton gold, the highest-grade of more than 400,000 soil samples collected so far by White Gold Corp.
Rock samples collected from Titan have returned some equally impressive numbers, including samples that contained 605 g/t (19.5 ounces per ton), 497 g/t (16 oz/t), 113 g/t (3.6 oz/t) and 78.3 g/t (2.5 oz/t) gold.
Rotary air blast (RAB) drilling carried out late during the 2019 program tapped a bedrock source for the strong gold mineralization found on the surface of Titan. The second hole drilled at Titan, HENTTN19RAB-02, cut 6.09 meters averaging 72.81 g/t gold. This bonanza grade intercept was within a 32-meter-thick zone averaging 14.82 g/t gold, one of the strongest holes ever drilled in the White Gold District.
White Gold's 2020 drill program at Titan began with RAB and reverse circulation drilling to further define targets for diamond drilling.
The 2020 program at JP Ross, a property immediately east of Hen, focused on refining drill targets across a roughly 15- by 15-kilometer (100 square miles) area that encompasses the Vertigo discovery.
The 2018 discovery hole at Vertigo cut 3.1 meters of 56.25 g/t gold, part of a 10.67-meter intercept averaging 17.34 g/t gold.
White Gold's systematic exploration has turned up three other JP Ross targets – Sabotage, Stage Fright, and North Frenzy – further tested with trenching in 2020.
Trenching at Stage Fright, which encompasses multiple gold-in-soil anomalies covering a 2,700- by 400-meter area about nine kilometers (5.5 miles) northwest of Vertigo, encountered a 2.5-meter-wide high-grade zone averaging 8.88 g/t gold in trench JPRSF20T009. Another trench at Stage Fright, JPRSF20T010, exposed two separate mineralized zones – 2.5 meters of 1.06 g/t gold and 2.5 meters of 1.83 g/t gold.
At Sabotage, a target about 1,500 meters southeast of Stage Fright, five of seven trenches encountered gold mineralization including 1.5 meters of 3.4 g/t gold in trench JPRSAB20T023; 8.5 meters of 1.15 g/t gold in trench JPRSAB20T025; and 2.1 meters of 1.06 g/t gold and 0.8 meters of 15 g/t gold in trench JPRSAB20T029.
Trenching at North Frenzy, a target roughly 4,500 meters northeast of Stage Fright, traced a north-south striking zone of mineralized quartz vein breccias with anomalous gold over a strike length of 600 meters.
In addition to trenching, top of bedrock samples with a GT Probe encountered intriguing gold values at Notorious, an untested target about 1,500 meters west of North Frenzy. Samples from Notorious returned values from 0.17 to 24.4 g/t gold.
Ryan's Surprise, a discovery about 2,000 meters west of the Golden Saddle deposit on the White Gold property, was another primary drill target for 2020.
The Golden Saddle and Arc deposits host 15.6 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.28 grams per metric ton (1.14 million oz) gold; and 9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.39 g/t (402,100 oz) gold.
Last year's drilling tested for extensions of Ryan's Surprise, which is associated with a more than 500-meter-long soil anomaly with samples of up to 1.58 g/t gold.
Highlights from previous drilling at the Ryan's Surprise anomaly include 6.6 meters averaging 6.33 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2011; 6.1 meters of 20.64 g/t gold in 2018; 13.2 meters of 5.02 g/t gold in 2018; and 21 meters of 2.07 g/t gold in 2019.
The six-hole program at Ryan's cut some of the highest grades encountered on the White Gold property.
Highlights from the 2020 program include 3.47 meters of 17.4 g/t gold; 3.76 meters of 10.96 g/t gold; and 12.3 meters of 8.69 g/t gold.
"We are very pleased to have encountered additional high-grade mineralization at the Ryan's Surprise in new zones and extensions to previously encountered mineralization in multiple directions. These results and the close proximity to our established resources provides further evidence of the growth potential of these projects," said D'Onofrio. "We are also further encouraged by the prospectivity of the other targets in this area which share geological and other characteristics with this recent discovery."
Ryan's also lies at the center of an 11,000-meter-long gold mineralized trend that runs alongside the Yukon River that includes Ulli's Ridge, Teachers Showing, Minneapolis Creek and several others being explored as part of White Gold's regional exploration program.
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.
Reader Comments(0)