The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drill encounters gold mineralization below historic workings North of 60 Mining News – March 5, 2021
Heliostar's 2020 drilling at Unga encountered gold below the Apollo-Sitka mine, Alaska's first hardrock gold operation.
Heliostar Metals Ltd. March 1 announced that its 2020 drilling tapped gold mineralization between the historic Apollo-Sitka Mine on its Unga project in Southwest Alaska.
Alaska's first hardrock gold mines, Apollo and Sitka produced roughly 150,000 oz of gold from high-grade epithermal veins from 1886 until around 1922, when the high-grade gold ore transitioned to more base metals-dominant mineralization. Despite historic exploration shafts demonstrating the vein continued beneath the mined areas and evidence of strong mineralization at depth, there is no record of drilling underneath the mines until Heliostar's 2020 program.
So far, Heliostar has received assays from the first four of seven holes drilled last year. These results include one hole, APS20-03A, that cut 1.95 meters averaging 4.77 grams per metric ton gold and 14.3 g/t silver from a depth of 157.9 meters.
"This initial drilling intersected multiple sub-parallel veins in the Apollo area, demonstrated strong gold grades and accurately located the veins at depth," said Heliostar Metals CEO Charles Funk.
Another hole, APS20-04, cut 24.99 meters of 0.3 g/t gold, 11.9 g/t silver, 0.8% zinc, and 0.7% lead from a depth of 5.8 meters.
"The broad stockwork zone intersected next to workings in hole APS20-04 has not been described in any known historic reports and its discovery significantly increases the economic potential of the Sitka area," Funk added.
Heliostar says this wide stockwork zone increases the economic potential of the Apollo-Sitka area and validates the company's geologic concept that this area has more mineralized material to offer.
"The company will begin systematically drilling at Apollo-Sitka when we recommence our program in late March with a goal of defining the full extent of mineralization found by earlier miners," said the Heliostar CEO.
Assays are pending from an additional three holes drilled at Sitka last year.
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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