The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Fireweed drill taps 76.5 meters of 4.2% zinc at Boundary West North of 60 Mining News – February 5, 2021
Old drill roads provide surface access to many of the deposits and targets at Macmillan Pass.
Fireweed Zinc Ltd. Feb. 3 reported a long intercept of strong zinc and silver mineralization in the discovery hole at Boundary West, a resource expansion target on the company's Macmillan Pass project in southeastern Yukon.
A road accessible project against the Northwest Territories border, the 544-square-kilometer (210 square miles) Macmillan Pass project blankets a roughly 55-kilometer- (34 miles) trend of potential zinc-lead-silver mineralization.
Two deposits at Macmillan Pass – Tom and Jason – host 11.21 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.59% (1.63 billion pounds) zinc, 2.48% (610 million lb) lead and 21.33 grams per metric ton (7.7 million ounces) silver; plus 39.47 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 5.84% (5.08 billion lb) zinc, 3.14% (2.73 billion lb) lead and 38.15 g/t (48.4 million oz) silver.
Boundary, a zone about 15 road-kilometers (nine miles) west of Jason with the potential to expand and upgrade these resources, was the primary target of Fireweed's 2020 drilling.
A 2019 hole drilled in the central zone at Boundary cut 100 meters of 7.94% zinc from surface, including 6.4 meters of 42.88% zinc.
In January, Fireweed reported results from two additional holes in the central Boundary zone area:
• Hole NB20-001 cut 246.7 meters averaging 2.6% zinc, 0.06% lead, and 5.9 g/t silver.
• Hole NB20-002 cut 212.7 meters averaging 4.42% zinc, 0.08% lead, and 10.7 g/t silver.
The latest assay results are from a hole drilled at Boundary West, a strong gravity high anomaly identified with a ground-based geophysical program carried out prior to the 2020 drilling. This anomaly extends roughly 800 meters west from the higher-grade core of Boundary into an area of no outcrop that had not previously been drilled.
NB20-004, the first hole to test this anomaly, cut 76.5 meters averaging 4.22% zinc, 0.34% lead, and 25.6 g/t silver.
Fireweed says NB20-004 did not test a lower sequence of mineralization encountered with subsequent drilling.
"This first hole into Boundary West has shown the impressive grade and width potential of the upper sequence. The massive pyrite-sphalerite-galena present in this upper interval demonstrate not just healthy zinc grades, but intriguing silver levels," said Fireweed Zinc CEO Brandon Macdonald. "We now wait on the assays from NB20-009, which also intersected the lower sequence at Boundary West, to see better the potential of this new discovery."
Assays are pending from three six holes from the 2020 drill program at Boundary.
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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