The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sees No. 1 Nevada as "prime" locale for mineral exploration North of 60 Mining News – March 5, 2021
ATAC Resources CEO Graham Downs at the Rackla project.
ATAC Resources Ltd. is focusing its 2021 mineral exploration program on the East Goldfield project in Nevada, a departure from more than a decade of primarily exploring its district-scale Rackla Gold property in the Yukon.
Late last year, the Yukon government rejected ATAC's application to build a 65-kilometer (40 miles), private tote road that would have supported advanced exploration and potential mine development at Rau, the westernmost of three projects that make up the expansive Rackla property.
Though ATAC did not directly mention the disappointing refusal of a road that seemed on track for approvals as the reasoning for this shift of jurisdictional focus, the company did tout Nevada's top "investment attractiveness" ranking on the Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies, 2020.
"We're very excited for our 2021 exploration work to get underway," said ATAC Resources President and CEO Graham Downs. "The Fraser Institute's 2020 Survey of Mining Companies recently ranked Nevada as the top jurisdiction in the world for mineral exploration."
By comparison, Yukon came in at 17th on the Fraser mining survey's investment attractiveness index – a ranking that was bolstered by a high regard for the territory's geology but as one of the worst jurisdictions in the world when it comes to the topic of disputed land claims.
Further details on the Fraser Institute's 2020 Annual Survey of Mining Companies and how North of 60 Mining News jurisdictions fared on the survey can be read at Geology is in the eye of the beholder in the February 26, 2021 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
ATAC's single largest 2021 exploration program will be at East Goldfields, a gold exploration property the company optioned from Silver Range Resources Ltd. early last year.
Situated on the Walker Lane gold trend about five miles (eight kilometers) east of Waterton Global Resource Management's Gemfield gold project, Goldfield hosts the historical Tom Keane mine, where shallow reverse circulation drilling by a previous operator returned 22.9 meters averaging 2.88 grams per metric ton gold and 44.2 meters of 1.03 g/t gold.
Soil sampling carried out by ATAC last year identified multiple gold-in-soil anomalies, with grades as high as 0.77 g/t gold.
ATAC plans to carry out a 4,000-meter drill program at East Goldfields that will begin with twinning and stepping out on historical holes at Tom Keane. Subsequent holes will target new anomalies identified by prospecting, soil sampling, and airborne hyperspectral geologic remote sensing.
"Drilling at our East Goldfield property will allow us to aggressively advance a well-located gold project in this prime jurisdiction," said Graham. "We will also continue work in the Yukon, testing high-grade silver potential at Val and advancing a copper porphyry target at our road-accessible Connaught property."
Val is a historical high-grade carbonate replacement silver-lead-zinc-copper-gold occurrence on the Rau project.
Historical drilling, primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, encountered high-grade silver over appreciable widths, including 20.1 meters averaging 703 g/t silver, 15.3% lead, and 22.1% zinc at the Big Red Zone.
ATAC conducted broadly spaced rock sampling at Big Red Zone in 2020, with 27 rock samples averaging 201 g/t silver, 1.85% lead, and 3.43% zinc, which supports ATAC's hypothesis that this zone has bulk tonnage potential.
The company's 2021 drilling at Val will evaluate this bulk tonnage material by sampling broader horizons with holes that twin and step out from historical high-grade intervals. Where available, historical drill core will also be re-logged and re-sampled in areas that were not originally sent for assay.
ATAC will also carry out soil sampling, prospecting, and mapping at Connaught, a road-accessible silver property about 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Dawson City and 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the Alaska-Yukon border.
Previous exploration largely focused on high-grade silver-lead-gold veins that often also carried copper and zinc. Rock samples from this property have returned grades as high as 4,050 g/t silver, 79.4% lead, 10.9 g/t gold, 7.2% zinc, and 1.98% copper.
In 2020, ATAC optioned two adjacent properties and staked claims to consolidate land on the eastern portion of Connaught with grassroots copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry potential. The company says the rocks, soil geochemistry, and geophysics are remarkably similar to the Taurus copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry deposit just across the border on Kenorland Minerals Ltd.'s Tanacross project in Alaska.
The company's 2021 program at Connaught will include systematic exploration and geophysics at the porphyry target area. Historical drill core will also be located, re-logged and re-sampled to obtain data for sections described as porphyry mineralization that were not originally assayed.
ATAC also plans to carry out grassroots exploration at Rosy, a gold-silver project about 77 kilometers (48 miles) east of Whitehorse, as well as other regional gold targets in Yukon.
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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